Measures of Desperation
by BolteAltamont
Summary: Looking for intricate mysteries with proper clues? Look no further! Wherever hope goes, despair will follow. A new class of students are forced into a life of mutual killing. Who will survive? Who will die? And who will be plunged into despair? Please read and review. Co-author: Wisteria22. 15 out of 16 students remaining.
1. An Inductive Hypothesis: Marty

Hope's Peak Academy — said to be one of the finest institutions in existence, its students go on to become the world's finest scientists, artists, businessmen...or anything else they could possibly hope to be.

Every year, its incoming students are handpicked by the school board. Each student selected is a master in his or her area. I'd already heard rumors of some of the new students this year...

...A "Super High School Level Basketball Star," the most valued member of the nation's most prestigious team...

...A "Super High School Level Journalist," heralded for her deeply moving articles, said to already be a Pulitzer contender...

...A "Super High School Level Scientist," a doctorate in both biochemistry and theoretical physics and still in his teens...

...In other words — Hope's Peak Academy is truly a beacon of hope, a symbol of the future, a haven where talent could be cultivated and nourished, where the leaders of tomorrow are shaped today.

And that is why Hope's Peak Academy has always been my target. In my eyes, no ambition was too great, no star was too far to reach — for I did have talent. From an early age I fell in love with that beautiful goddess, that queen of the sciences which was mathematics. I studied...I excelled...I conquered.

I published my first paper in a prominent mathematical journal at the age of nine. I knew I would fit right in at Hope's Peak Academy. I knew that I was exactly the type of high schooler that its school board wanted. I was the year's Super High School Level Mathematician.

It was hardly a surprise, then, when I received a letter in the mail bearing the emblem of Hope's Peak Academy. And so I found myself exactly where I wanted to be — standing in front of the Academy's doors, waiting to enter.

But that was soon to change.

* * *

Opening my eyes, I saw before me a few rows of desks, with a blackboard at the front of the room. I was sitting at such a desk.

Distantly, I heard the sound of voices from outside of the room I was in. Their voices...they sounded so...nervous...

As I tried to find my bearings, a crack of light shone through the door. As it widened, a rather pretty girl appeared, wearing red ribbons in her curly brown hair, looking at me with a curious expression.

"I...I wasn't sleeping!" I informed her hurriedly, as she raised her eyebrows at me. "I was just...uh..."

"...Certainly." I watched as she scowled at me, rolling her eyes. "We're meeting in the gymnasium," she continued, briskly. "You're expected to be there."

I straightened, cocking an eyebrow at her. "Who are you?"

The girl let out a sigh in which I could detect a hint of impatience. "Elizabeth Morgan," said Elizabeth Morgan. "Super High School Level Ghost Writer. Pleasure." She held out her hand expectantly.

For a moment I contemplated kissing it, but I decided against coming off too strong. "Pleasure's all mine," I said as I shook it instead. "Who's expecting me, exactly?"

"Our classmates, simpleton." She gave that eye roll again and went straight out the door. Perhaps I should have just kissed her hand.

I hurried on beside her. "Ugh," I said, as we turned the corner and I spotted our destination, "I hate gyms."

"Everyone...SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Not quite the reaction I was expecting towards my expression of opinion, but very well. I observed that the voice had emitted from a girl with faded pink hair, which she was pulling at in frustration. "WE NEED TO THINK THIS THROUGH CALMLY!"

Standing next to her was a boy with a complacent smile upon his lips. "What do you mean?" he inquired innocently. "I'm very calm."

"We should first figure out who each of us is," said another girl, whose hair resembled a scoop of strawberry ice cream beside a scoop of chocolate. She pinched her lips with her fingers as she spoke, and her brow was furrowed in thought. "We can't do anything until we know who we all are."

I leaned toward Elizabeth, sporting an expression of confusion. "Uhhh, what's going on?" I asked her in a whisper.

Elizabeth rolled her eyes — surprise, surprise. "We all woke up in various locations around the school. We do not know what happened. This is an attempt to find some order."

It made sense. I looked over to the others. "Well, I'll go first then," said the girl with the multicolored hair. "I am Victoria Winchester, Super High School Level Analyst."

"That sounds cool!" said a bespectacled brunette, who was scribbling away on her small notepad. "Tell us more."

"What does an analyst even do?" said a cute yet vigorous-looking blonde girl.

Victoria sighed a practiced sigh. "An analyst analyzes every little detail...Something I doubt you're capable of — race car trash."

The blonde reddened, looking quite disgruntled. "H-hey! Who are you calling trash, here? I could...I could run you over in, like, two seconds!"

"Without a car? Bitch, please."

While the pair bickered between themselves, the introductions continued. One girl bowed her head. "Charlie Bradbury. Super High School Level Huntress, at your service."

"H-huntress?" said yet another one of the girls, who was wearing a very regal red dress. "What do you...hunt?"

"People," Charlie stated, smiling fondly for a few moments before letting out a giggle. "Just kidding! I killed Bambi."

The pink-haired girl snorted. "Wow, you're a funny girl, aren't you? Well... I am the great Maggie Singer, Super High School Level Con Artist Extraordinaire!"

"Are you sure you should be bragging about that?" Charlie pointed out — a fair point.

The girl in the red dress was still gaping at Charlie, her face molded into a textbook definition of horror. "But...those poor animals!" she cried as she pouted her lips. "How ever could you do that to them?"

"Wait, that's actually, like, really cool, though," a red-haired girl beside me gushed eagerly. "You've got to show me something you've killed some time. I'm Noella Balmer, by the way — Super High School Level Mortician." She gave us all a sweet grin. I blinked.

"Certainly!" Charlie replied, giving Noella a matching smile. "Girl's gotta eat, right?"

"I wouldn't mind examining a few of the remains either," muttered a scrawny, purple-haired boy. "Lucas Doyle. Scientist."

The girl in the dress shivered visibly, the tremor sending a ripple down the crimson fabric. "Ewww! You guys are all so creepy." Her eyes darted around the room before locking in place, marching up to a boy with bleached hair. "You seem nice enough. I'm Audrey Felicion — Super High School Level Actress, at your service." She flashed him a brilliant smile.

"Er, hi, hi, hi!" said the boy, smiling abashedly. "I'm Jacob, but don't call me Stupid-cob, because I'm funny!" He laughed nervously. "I don't know why they made me Super High School Level Luck anyways, r-r-right?" It was pitiful to watch him, but Audrey laughed along, a charming laugh that echoed throughout the gym.

Another boy let out a deeply weary sigh and spoke. "Let's just get this over with, shall we? Buzz Triton. Super High School Level Trivia Expert. You know, Jeopardy and the like." Looking at Buzz, I found it difficult to imagine him standing behind a flashy podium, engaging in playful banter with a microphone-bearing host, but then again nobody expects a Super High School Level Mathematician to be stunningly handsome, either.

"Psssh. Nerd." I glared at the tall boy who had spoken, who rolled his eyes, punched Buzz in the arm, and walked on by. "Jack Richards," he proclaimed. "Super High School Level Basketball Star."

The collected, smiling boy gave Jack an odd look of approval. "Mmmm," said he. "I'm Hibbert Knowles. There are many names for what I do. I prefer...mentalist." He gave us all a pleasant grin.

A boy wearing an extravagant top hat spun around, striking a ridiculous pose. "But we all know the public loves me more, isn't that right, Hibbie? Je suis Felix Fantastique! Super High School Level Diva."

"And I'm Lexa Axel," the cute blonde began, "Super High School Level —"

"We all know you're a racecar driver already, don't we?" Buzz drawled impatiently. "Next?" He glowered directly at myself with a look of expectation.

"Huh?" I realized I had forgotten to introduce myself. Scratching at the back of my head with a chuckle, I explained, "Oh, I, uh, guess I just sort of assumed everyone knew who I was." Honestly, it was almost as if none of them recognized me.

"Commoner trash," I heard Elizabeth mutter with a scoff. I suspected she had intentionally said it so I could hear; playing hard to get, of course.

The notepad bearer, it seemed, had no such qualms. She grinned a wide grin at me. "Don't worry about Elizabeth, she's just jealous," she cheerfully informed me. "Nobody knows who _she_ is. But I know who you are! You're Marty Wiles, the famous kid mathematician!"

"Yep, that pretty much covers it." I smiled, pleased. "And you're...?"

"Melissa Gazette, Super High School Level Journalist. Pleased to meet you!"

Elizabeth muttered something inaudible this time, giving Melissa a look of distaste. Melissa stuck her tongue out Elizabeth before scribbling away on her notepad once more.

"...Lovely," Victoria stated simply. "Is that everyone?"

Hibbert held out his index finger, pointed elegantly upwards. "Not so quick, my dear." He turned pi radians on the spot. "Who might you be?"

The black-haired girl, the only one who had not yet spoken, reddened considerably and stuffed her hands in her pockets. She glared up at Hibbert silently for a few moments, as Hibbert smiled at her patiently — then, suddenly, with alarming velocity, she rushed over to Melissa and snatched her notepad away.

"H-hey!" Melissa cried out. "I have some very important notes on there!"

The silent girl ignored her as she pulled out a pencil from behind her ear and began sketching something on the paper.

"She's Penny Cecil, Super High School Level Artist," Victoria supplied, giving Hibbert a pointed look. "She's mute. And you call yourself observant."

I gazed over Penny's shoulder, looking at her picture. In those few seconds, she had already managed to draw a picture of herself. The picture of herself was drawing another picture — the same picture that the real her was drawing. "Wow — infinite recursion," I remarked. "That's really impressive."

Penny jumped at the sound of my voice and looked up at me, wide-eyed. Then, with what looked like immense effort, her lips curled up into a small smile.

That smile was not to last.

We stood there in the gym, making idle conversation with each other. Nobody, however, seemed quite capable of explaining how we had arrived within the school in the first place.

"Whenever I try to remember how I got here," Lexa explained, "I get this huge headache."

Although that sounded admittedly quite strange, nobody appeared to be particularly disconcerted. After all, what other reason was there to suspect that something was amiss?

As a shrill voice suddenly blared through the air, I had a feeling that question was about to be answered. "Upupupupu!" the voice cried.

"Eeeep! W-what was that?" cried Audrey, as we all looked skyward, searching for the source of the noise. "Is someone screaming? Is someone hurt?"

"That didn't sound like screaming," Victoria pointed out. "It was more like —"

"Laughter." Somehow, Hibbert continued to smile. "Somebody's mocking us, no doubt."

"Upupupupu!" the chilling voice shrieked once more. "Welcome to Hope's Peak Academy, you bastards!"

"It's coming from behind that podium," said Buzz, pointing at the stage at the front of the gym, which appeared to double as an auditorium. On the stage sat a simple wooden podium, upon which the emblem of Hope's Peak Academy was painted.

"Upupupu," that terrifying voice cackled once more. "That's right, you bastards! I am Monobear, the principal of you little brats."

With a loud swoosh, a large black-and-white object flew out from behind the podium, landing before us on the edge of the stage.

"What," said Lexa, her mouth gaping wide. "The. Fuck."

For the object that had been only a blur while airborne was now standing still — and it was literally standing, as it seemed to be a bear.

"Is this...some sort of joke?" asked Melissa, anxiety underlying her words. I sympathized; much like Victoria's hair, the bear was a polar bear on its right half and a black bear on its left, though it looked more like something out of a cartoon than something out of a zoo. While its right eye appeared normal, its left eye was a jagged red streak. While the right side of its snout resembled that of a usual stuffed bear, the left side extended into a row of sharp, gleaming white teeth.

Victoria shook her head. "If it were a joke, it would have ended by now."

"Upupupu! She's right!" the bear exclaimed. "I am your headmaster, and I am delighted to tell you that you are going to live out the rest of your puny lives in here!"

The rest of our lives? That was no small statement. But unless I was mistaken...the bear meant it.

Noella let out a sigh of disappointment. "Awww. I guess I won't get to see one of your animal bodies after all, Charlie. I was kinda looking forward to that."

"That's what you're worried about?" I said to her, a little awestruck. "Seriously — what's that bear thing going on about?"

The bear rubbed its furry little paws together; I spotted razor-edged claws protruding from them. "Oh, no, don't worry. You'll have plenty of corpses to see."

"...Corpses?!" Charlie repeated incredulously, not the first person I would have expected to make such a remark. "What are you, Voldemort?"

"You see," the bear continued, ignoring the interruption, "you can leave this school...if you successfully murder someone! Upupupu!"

We stood there for a few second, most of us looking dazed.

Then suddenly the room erupted in noise. "Murder?" "What do you mean?" "Why not?" "Murder?" "I won't stand for this!" "You can't...you can't do this..." "...Murder."

Hibbert's voice carried above all of the others'. "So that's it. I figured there was some sort of criminal activity going on, what with all of these conspicuously empty hallways around here. But what is it that you mean about murdering, Mr. Monobear?"

The bear's voice lowered in pitch as he leaned forward towards us, his face darkening into a sinister red hue. "This is a school of mutual killing! Kill or be killed! Kill one of your friends or live the rest of your life in here!" The bear erupted into laughter before continuing. "Oh, and there are a few rules...But as long as you follow them, we'll enjoy a nice, relaxing, stress-free murdering spree! Upupupu!"

"What sort of rules?" I demanded. I saw no harm in playing along. The bear did appear to be terribly insane, after all.

"Well, for one thing, to leave this school, the murderer can't get caught!" the bear screeched. "When a murder occurs, you bastards who aren't already pushing up daisies must participate in a school trial! If the mystery is solved, the culprit is punished! Upupupupu!"

"P-punishment?" Melissa asked, her eyes round and wide. "What does that mean?"

"Why, that's simple!" the bear replied, his voice dripping with mockery and twisted delight. "Punishment with a capital P — in other words, capital punishment! Upupupupu! See what I did there? What we'll be going for is nothing short of cold-blooded execution! Or warm-blooded, if that's more your thing. I have fried students to crisps before, you know!"

"Stop! That's disgusting!" Audrey cried, slamming her hands against her ears.

"What about...the other rules?" Lucas asked hesitantly.

The bear continued. "Allow me to finish. If the culprit is not caught, the culprit graduates! Everyone else is executed instead!"

"Well, we can't let that happen, can we?" said Noella. "We won't kill anyone. Then nobody will die, right?"

"That's right!" Maggie yelled. "Nobody's gonna play your stupid little game!"

"It's up to you bastards, then!" The bear continued to taunt us. "You'll all be holed up in here for the rest of your days! You might all be friends right now, but what about fifty years from now? How are you going to feel then? I'll let you chew on that. Nom nom nom! Upupupupu!"

And with that, the bear vanished from view.

For a long while, all of us were silent. We looked between each other, our faces displaying disbelief, apprehension, terror...suspicion...

Finally, Melissa broke the silence. "Uh, can someone explain what just happened?"

Soon everyone was talking at once. "Talking bears?" shouted Lexa. "What next, flying zebras? What the hell is going on here?"

"And what was that about...murder?" asked Buzz, looking concerned.

"Morons!" Elizabeth scoffed, retreating to a corner of the gym alone.

"It would appear that we must stay here unless we get away with murder," Victoria noted. "...Fascinating." She, too, wandered off from the rest of us.

"Well...now that joke I made earlier is a little creepy, huh?" said Charlie, with a nervous, perhaps almost delirious chuckle.

"H-Hey! Jokes are my thing!" Jacob cried, his voice cracking. "B-But maybe we should look for a way out?"

"Yeah, smartass, maybe we should! Like, I dunno, let's not run away from the creepy teddy bear!" Maggie rolled her eyes. "Please, you have the IQ of a flea." She marched off in disgust.

"Do let's try and stay calm, shall we?" Hibbert said, the only hint of his unrest being that his voice was rather softer than usual.

"Victoria's completely wrong, isn't she?" Audrey asked of us, desperately flicking her eyes over each of us in turn, seeking some assent. "It's probably just a stupid prank. Right?"

"We might as well look for a way out, then," Charlie pointed out. "Otherwise we won't be able to tell."

"Hmph," said Jack, his arms crossed in defiance, "It's probably a hazing, for the new students. Or...or something to weed out the weak before classes." He walked off with a yawn.

"The windows looked like they could open," Hibbert pointed out. "I doubt the solution would be so simple, but perhaps one of us could check?"

"I'll go," Buzz groaned, as if somebody had forced him to. He trudged away, his hands in his pockets.

I glanced over at Penny, who seemed to be positively trembling with fear. She held up a perspective drawing of the hallway I had walked through to enter the gym, with windows lining either wall. While the ceiling, floor, and walls conveyed a sense of realism, within each window was a cartoonish flower or tree. I spotted Victoria in the distance, frowning at the picture as well, no doubt wondering what it could mean.

"What if...there's really no way out of here?" Melissa said. "I mean, I get that it's a boarding school, but that's a little too extreme...isn't it?" Like Audrey, she looked between all of us hopefully.

"Yeah, I was hoping there'd still be the occasional field trip," said Noella with a sigh. "Oh, well."

Charlie spoke up. "If all of this is real...I mean, this would make a sick movie, but in reality? It's all a little..."

"...Depressing." Felix made a show out of dragging out each syllable.

I looked around the gym. By now, half of us had already left. I decided that it was time for myself to make an exit, as well. After muttering some excuse, I strolled off, deep in thought. What a day it had been...I needed some time to digest everything that happened. Dozens of questions and conjectures bounced around in my head. One thing, however, was clear.

Hope's Peak Academy was no longer a beacon of hope. It had been filled...infected...contaminated...with despair.


	2. Puzzle Pieces: Victoria

**Rule 1: Students may not leave the school unless they successfully graduate.**

 **Rule 2: Voluntarily sleeping anywhere other than within the dormitories will be seen as sleeping in class and punished accordingly.**

 **Rule 3: Violence against Monobear, the headmaster, is strictly prohibited, as is the destruction of surveillance cameras.**

 **Rule 4: In the event of a murder, a school trial shall commence. Participation in the school trial will be mandatory.**

 **Rule 5: During the school trial, students will attempt to identify the culprit. If the culprit is successfully identified, he or she alone shall be executed for the crime.**

 **Rule 6: Failure to identify the culprit will be considered a violation of the school rules. In this event, all students except for the culprit shall be executed.**

 **Rule 7: A culprit who successfully hides his or her guilt shall be permitted to graduate and leave the school.**

 **Rule 8: After three or more people first discover a dead body, a Body Discovery Announcement shall be broadcast throughout the school.**

 **Warning: Additional school regulations may be added if necessary.**

* * *

I once heard it explained that there are multiple types of intelligence. Einstein said that if you judged a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it too would think it was stupid.

But what if you told that fish it was the best tree climber, but it never managed to make it to the top? That was my life. I could analyze everything to death, yet when it came time to draw a conclusion about what I observed….well, it was pointless.

Small footsteps. Approximately size…eight. A careful tread, too. Average weight and height. Most likely female. I paused, not bothering to turn around. "I know you're there."

The only issue was that I still couldn't fathom who it could be. However, I didn't have too long to ponder, as the person quickly caught up to me.

"Victoria!" Melissa's voice cried out. "Wait up!"

I sighed, and then smiled warmly at her. Lifting my hand up, I scratched the back of my head, feigning embarrassment. "Oh, hi…Melissa?"

She nodded, her legal pad — apparently she had brought a spare — ready to be covered with notes. "Yup! That's me! Funny, I never thought you would be bad with names!"

"The irony isn't lost on me either," I giggled, my eyes lighting up. "But…did you want something?

"I want to help you investigate, silly!" she grinned, "It'll be a big help to me — my investigative journalism needs a lot of work. And you're good at this type of thing, aren't you?"

"Well…yes," I nodded, curling my hand slightly. "Can you make a catalog of everything we find? Monobear was not joking — I expect there will be a murder before the week is up. Might as well be prepared, don't you think?"

Melissa nodded eagerly, drawing up a table for the details to be filled into. I continued walking down the hallway, noting that to my right was the boy's dormitories. A notice on the wall stated that female students were encouraged not to enter.

"Bummer, guess we can't look in there, huh?" Melissa pouted, "It's probably dirty anyways. Filled with condoms and socks and nudes…"

I shook my head, quietly slipping through the door. The sign indicated no reason for me to not be allowed to go inside — it was just encouraged that I didn't. A beautiful silver lining, and one most people would overlook. If I had to state a reason for it, I would say it would be to make murders more likely to happen…

…And for our failure to identify a culprit to become more certain.

"Vic-tor-i- _yaaah!_ " Melissa squealed, running in behind me. "All these doors are locked, huh? And they have these neat little plaques! Wonder why…"

She was right. There were seven dorm rooms, all in a row. The hallway was a narrow one, with a small door at the very end of it. I tried to open it, but it wouldn't budge.

The bear appeared with a knowing smile, "Upupupu! That door is no good, and I lost the key for it! It's somewhere around this school, so if you find it, let me know!"

As quickly as he had come, the bear vanished. Melissa's face revealed her shock, but soon it turned to rage and horror, and ultimately it melted all together into a state of calm. The girl was a collage of emotions, each appearing and disappearing in turn, with the gracefulness of a well-timed ballet.

"Hmm…We need to keep this room in mind," I stated quietly, trying the locks on all of the occupied rooms. None of them worked. However, my mental map of the area was becoming clearer. The rooms, in order, starting from the one closest to the dormitory exit, appeared like this:

Marty, the Super High School Level Mathematician

Hibbert, the Super High School Level Mentalist

Jack, the Super High School Level Basketball Star

Buzz, the Super High School Level Trivia Expert

Felix, the Super High School Level Diva

Jacob, the Super High School Level Good Luck

And lastly, Lucas, the Super High School Level Scientist.

"Where should we look next, Vicky?" Melissa grinned, sticking her tongue out. She seemed to compartmentalize things well.

"…Do not call me Vicky," I frowned, not realizing how harsh it seemed. Without answering her question, I exited the dormitory, before proceeding straight across from it. Two magnificent oak doors opened into a theater, with a small stand just outside designed for the sales of tickets.

It was Hope's Peak, after all. It made sense for them to have such a glorious space for their performing arts.

I pushed open the doors, noting how silently they opened, without even disturbing the carpet. Melissa, like a puppy, ran inside behind of me. The stage itself was massive, complete with an orchestra pit and catwalk. Somewhere, in the very back of the theater, there was a small cubby where the dressing rooms were located. Two wings allowed for graceful entrance on and off.

"These are some fairly nice seats," I commented, attempting to break the silence. "Plush, a traditional shade of red…Hardly any damage to them as well. But as far as I can see, the rigging and the lights and such are the only potential hazards in here…Do you agree?"

"Well…," Melissa seemed sad, looking at her feet a bit, "Someone could fall from the catwalk. Or into the pit. Or off the stage. They might not die, but…"

"They may be gravely injured," I offered. "Come on. We've got more places to go see."

* * *

A staircase led ominously down into the basement, where I could only assume that the girls dormitory would be located. However, the sound of voices echoed up from the stairs. Someone else was already exploring that area.

"Oh, hey, it's that bitch!" Lexa screamed as I headed instead into the cafeteria with Melissa.

"Melissa, it seems you upset her," I stated softly, an air of perfect cluelessness gracing my face. The rest of the room burst out into laughter. It was a key skill to surviving in any type of social group — be amusing.

"Oh come ON!" Jacob screamed, "I've been trying all day to make you guys laugh! Say something funny! Funny! Haha, get it? I'm hilarious! They…they messed up when they made me luck, okay?"

His eyes locked onto mine, as if I would understand his plight somehow. "I should be a comedian! You'd come to see my shows, wouldn't you?"

"…," I smiled gracefully, and nodded my head, "I would love to have the honor of attending your shows."

Jacob beamed, looking at me with absolute pride. However, the moment he licked his lips, I felt an urge to throw up. I frowned at him, watching as his eyes travelled downwards. Noella was in the room as well, and she seemed to be looking at me with an air of pity —perhaps she also knew what complete horny idiots boys could be.

Or maybe that pity wasn't intended for me.

* * *

The kitchen was fairly normal, although the doors were what interested me. With the slightest push, they glided seamlessly back into the wall, without making a single sound. There was a mechanism to lock them, but it seemed to require some sort of passcode…

"Upupupu~!" Monobear screeched, appearing with joy. "One of you bastards gets the code to the kitchen! Let me know at the end of the day when you're deciding who you trust with all of these fancy knives…."

His body seemed to squirm, as if he was a smile child dreaming of a chocolate cake filled with even more chocolate. Parts of his white figure became colored rosy red, the most ironic blush of all.

…I blinked, looking at him with slight horror. Melissa's expression mirrored mine.

"So, I assume that we're not allowed to share the passcode with anyone," I stated, before seeing Monobear nod. He started ranting about punishments and the law and society, and somehow, he ended up telling me a story about a grandfather who drowned his grandson because he broke the rules.

For some reason, I didn't feel like remaining in the kitchen much longer. The knife collection was extensive, and every implement someone could imagine was inside. Even the fridge was fully stocked with gourmet dishes.

"Who made all of these, then?" I pondered aloud, quickly following Melissa out the door before my strange furry friend would start to lecture me once more on the school to prison pipeline—or, as he called it, expressway.

* * *

I continued my exploration as Melissa stayed behind for a light snack. I peeked around the corner, and I spotted a towheaded boy. Hibbert the mentalist. I wasn't quite sure what his job entailed, but as far as I understood, he was the same as me - only in his case, he could make a show out of it.

"Hibbert!" I called out, smiling sweetly. "Want to come explore the rest of this place with me?"

He chuckled. "Of course, I might as well…I can show you all sorts of things you would never notice. For example…you were born in May, weren't you?"

"…June."

"Close enough," he shrugged, extending a hand.

I shook my head, sticking my tongue out playfully. "I don't hold hands with self-proclaimed psychics."

He shrugged, seemingly unoffended. "Don't be silly, psychics don't exist. I'm simply well-versed in psychology."

We walked to the drama storage closet. It was fairly ordinary, if rather expansive, with two large racks of costumes. Some of the props were fashioned to look like weapons, but they easily shattered when I tested them on Hibbert's head.

"Hmm, at least they have refreshments in here." He chuckled, gesturing to the back counter. It was filled with glass soda bottles, each of them a different color. Popcorn and gummy bears were in the back too, with one gummy bear having been pounded into a pulp.

"Someone had anger issues," I said with a chuckle, gesturing at the gooey spot. "I wonder what they used, though…There's hardly anything in here that you could consider to be dangerous."

"Yeah," Hibbert yawned, "Still, this place was probably good for coming out of the closet, if you know what I mean?

I giggled, smiling at him with a hint of sadness. "Let's go check out the recreational center, and then the girls dormitory."

"Oh, I don't swing that way…" He stated, looking a little awkward.

With an eye roll, I laughed at him, "I'm the Super High School Level Analyst. I'm not some dumb blonde. Honestly, you call yourself a mentalist."

* * *

A row of empty lockers lined the wall just outside of the drama storage room. On the opposite side of the door was an entrance to the next floor. A grand spiral staircase went upwards, with a certain amount of elegance and grace. It was dim and darkened, however, by large metal bars blocking it from our path. I traced my hands along them, looking for some sort of lock to pick.

"There's no way to remove those," Hibbert commented smugly. "Some sort of remote must control them. We're trapped."

"So it would seem," I sighed, before forcing myself to smile. I walked down the hallway, eyeing the colorful posters on the wall. They advertised various school events, such as senior check-out days and lip sync battles.

It was an ordinary high school, with ordinary posters and ordinary benches, set almost in the middle of the walkway. They seemed comfortable enough, and given their proximity to the kitchen, they were probably intended for lunch. Directly across from them was the recreational room.

The door was dark, with shades on it that permitted any light from coming through.

"I really hope it's not sound proof as well…" I sighed, pulling on the door. It was a little sticky, and it squeaked when it opened. It wasn't oiled well.

The lights were off, and I fumbled around in the dark, searching for the light switch. Instead, I found Hibbert's chest. Awkward.

"Here it is!" I cried in triumph, flipping it on.

"….Wow," Hibbert whistled, looking around, "This place would have been cool…"

"In 1969," I cut him off, gazing at the décor. It wasn't actually that bad, and it did have a nice television. Well, it would have been nice if it hadn't had a giant crack in the middle. Nothing would be able to fix that easily.

A few DVDs were lying around, all of them featuring Monobear in some shape of form. They were called _So You Want To Commit Murder: The Interactive Series!_ I bit my lip, before slipping them quietly into the pockets of my coat. Hibbert didn't notice.

"I bet the drama storage room snacks came from here," I mused, fingering some game station controllers.

Hibbert was amusing himself with the air hockey, scoring goal after goal against himself. Boys. So easily distracted. It's a wonder they ever managed to accomplish anything.

"You know, if you broke one of the pool sticks, it could be a pretty wicked weapon," Hibbert grinned, "Wanna try it?"

"Pssh. I'll pass. Everyone here already thinks I'm creepy, no need to further their notions."

A bookshelf in the corner was covered in volumes, for those who wanted to read while they relaxed. Most of them featured murders in some shape or manner, with the exception of _Monobear, A Biography_ sitting on a pedestal. The light hit it directly; whether that was intended or not, I couldn't be completely sure.

"Well, I think that's it for this place. Let's go check out the dormitories!"

"Actually…I think I'll inspect them alone," I smiled, tilting my head and closing my eyes. "I wouldn't want people to talk."

* * *

The stairs just outside the theater led directly downwards, almost looking as if they descended into some dark dungeon. It was rather steep and dingy, with very small lights being provided to try to prevent accidents. Tugging on one of them, I found they could be easily removed, and perhaps they could be concealed in other areas that might need them.

At the bottom of the stairs, I found a metal door. A passcode reader was next to it, and I stuck my card inside. It confirmed my identity, allowing me inside of the girls dormitory. It was a bit like Harry Potter, what with only the boys not being trusted in the girls' dorms.

"Actually, this used to be the bomb shelter!" Monobear appeared with a giggle, standing on the steps. "Those card readers will only let girls down here, though, so don't worry about anyone coming and wanting something….Or do worry! Heheehe! It's all the same to me!"

Ignoring him, I continued to look around inside. It was a lot cozier than the boys dormitory. There was a couch, with a working television mounted on the wall. Flipping it on, I found it had no signal—typical.

The rooms were separated into two hallways, with a communal shower at the very end. Each door was covered in glitter and sparkles and sported a nametag for the occupant. The hallway to the left of the door had these rooms in the following order:

Noella Balmer, the Super High School Level Mortician

Audrey Felicion, the Super High School Level Actress

Penny Cecil, the Super High School Level Artist

Melissa Gazette, the Super High School Level Journalist.

The other hallway, directly to my right, had these rooms:

Lexa Axel, the Super High School Level Racecar Driver

Elizabeth Morgan, the Super High School Level Ghost Writer

Charlie Bradbury, the Super High School Level Huntress

Maggie Singer, the Super High School Level Con Artist.

"Where….is my room…?" I asked, looking at no one in particular. The two main hallways had rooms for everyone but me. I frowned, before discovering that beyond the main living room, there was another pair of stairs. I walked down the steps, discovering that it became colder and darker as I went. I flipped on the lights once I found them, shivering as I peered around.

The rooms, all except one, were marked with crime scene tape. Scratches adorned them. I bit my lip, feeling gently the walls, and knowing that there was most likely dried blood underneath my fingertips.

"Something terrible happened here," I said, stating the obvious to an empty hallway.

I couldn't see the blood, of course. It had been wiped away. But somehow, I knew. I knew it was there. And turning my gaze, I found one room was untouched out of these eight: it had a tiny placard, almost an afterthought, with my name on it.

Welcome home.


	3. Hope Interred: Noella

When you set up a casket, you've got to pick the perfect color scheme. For a regular old-ager, plain brown wood with a white or cream interior works best. For someone super important, go with purple satin on the inside and sleek silver steel on the outside, though sometimes red velvet within a really dark wood — maybe a few touches of gold here and there — works better. Whatever you choose, the main thing to keep in mind is that people should feel comfortable looking at it.

Because if you think about, that's really what the job's all about in the end — making death feel comfortable. Your customers aren't the cadavers. Your customers are the ones who bury them.

That was what was on my mind as I strolled through the school, whistling a catchy tune whose lyrics I'd forgotten, spotting a very distressed looking girl on the other end of the hall.

I craned my neck forward to see who it was. I recognized the blonde hair, the powerful-looking legs. "Hi, Lexa!" I waved at her merrily.

She stopped in her tracks, looking really surprised. Or was she...blushing?

Whatever the case, she turned on the spot and hurried in the other direction.

"Awww — hey," I called after her. I hurried to try and catch up, but naturally, she was quick. I'd have to change tactics. "On your left!" I yelled. "Watch out!"

Lexa halted, whirling around. "Gotcha!" I said, finally catching up. "What's wrong?"

"Get the hell away from me," Lexa muttered, though she didn't actually move anywhere.

"So there is something wrong, isn't there?" I noted. "It's okay. You can tell me."

Lexa sighed and sat down, right there in the hallway, leaning against the wall. I took a seat beside her.

"It's that analyst girl," Lexa whined. "She just makes me...so angry!" She was practically growling.

"Hmm," I said, cocking my head to one side and looking at her carefully. "I bet that's not the only thing wrong, is it?"

"No." She groaned, looking down at her hands folded in her lap. "This...this whole business...I don't have time for this crap! I just wanna go home!" Then she turned to look me in the eye, her voice softening a little. "I just...want to go home."

We blinked at each other for a few seconds. Then I wrapped my arms around her in a bear hug.

After a minute, she finally pulled away. "I like your skirt," she murmured in an attempt to make conversation. Then suddenly she shook head. "You weren't what I expected at all."

I laughed. "I get that a lot." I glanced down at my bright blue and purple checkered skirt. Adding my mop of red hair on top of that, nothing about me conveyed a girl who hanged out around dead bodies all day.

"I don't like it when people just assume things about you from the way you look, y'know?" I explained. "I get a kick out of watching those kinds of people make fools of themselves. So I like being as weird as possible." I grinned. "I guess that's part of the reason why I got into funeral directing in the first place."

Lexa looked at me with a small smile. "I know what you mean."

I looked back at her. She was scared. But she needn't be scared of death. "We'll get through this together, okay?" I said to her, nudging her gently on the shoulder.

"Promise?" she said.

I hesitated for the slightest of moments. "Promise," I said.

Then I had an idea. "Come on!" I said, standing up and taking her hand. "Let's go find the others."

* * *

It took a while to convince Lexa to go along with my plan, but I've got a knack for reassuring people that things would turn out all right in the end.

Now Lexa and I stood in the middle of the cafeteria. We were joined by Victoria, Charlie, and Melissa.

"Lexa," I said calmly and slowly, the way you'd talk to a preschooler, "Don't you have something you want to say?"

Lexa glared at me. I grinned back at her. She rolled her eyes and turned to Victoria, muttering, "Sorry I called you a bitch."

Victoria looked skeptical, while Melissa was clearly trying hard not to giggle.

"And now it's your turn," I said to Victoria, who cleared her throat.

She said to Lexa, "While I don't regret anything I may have said to you —"

"Hey!" cried Lexa, who looked like she would have tackled Victoria to the floor if it weren't for Charlie's timely grip on Lexa's arm.

"— I'll accept a truce, for now," Victoria finished.

"Good enough," I said cheerfully, beaming at the pair of them. "Now you won't try to murder each other!"

For some reason, the four of them suddenly turned around to face me. "...What?" I asked, puzzled.

"Nothing," said Charlie hurriedly. "Victoria, what were you saying earlier?"

So they'd been talking about something important before Lexa and I had gotten to the cafeteria. I guess that explained why Victoria still looked kind of miffed. But then again, she always looked kind of miffed.

"We have a theater beside us and a recreational center on the opposite side, across the hallway with the benches," Victoria stated. That sounded familiar — it was the hallway Lexa and I were in just a moment ago. "Near the front of the theater are the entrances to the dormitories, with the boys' dormitory on this floor and the girls' dormitory down the stairs in the basement. On the other side of the school, out those cafeteria doors" — she pointed to the big doors we had come through — "is the drama storage closet and the band room beside each other —"

"Oh come on, who cares?" Lexa interrupted impatiently. "Just tell me how we can get out of here!"

"She has a point," agreed Charlie. "Maybe we can climb out of one of the windows?"

"No chance," came a voice from behind me. I turned around — Buzz had been the one who had spoken, and he was with Lucas and Marty. "I know bulletproof glass when I see it. Don't even bother trying to get out that way." He sighed as he plopped down onto a bench. I felt sorry for him — he was scared, too.

"And even if we could break through them, it wouldn't be of much use," Marty added. "You see —"

"The backdrop's fake, yes," Victoria finished for him, her eyes alight with something mad.

Marty raised his eyebrows, looking rather impressed. "Oh, so you noticed it, too?"

Victoria smiled. "I'm the Super High School Level Analyst, remember?"

"What are we talking about, here?" asked a puzzled Melissa.

Marty smiled. "Allow me to show you."

* * *

The doors opposite the cafeteria's entrance led to the kitchen, and at the back of the kitchen was a window.

By now, Felix and Jack had joined us. I was happy to see us all together.

Jack pounded on the window with his knuckles. I thought he looked kind of funny. "Well, that's a bust," he observed. "Looks like you were right, Buzz."

Buzz frowned. "Thank you for your most technical input. Perhaps you ought to try banging on the walls next?"

I bit back a chuckle and peered out the window. There appeared to be a row of lilac bushes a couple of yards outside, with what seemed to be grass and dirt in the space between. But...

"That's not real dirt," I noted confidently. "I know dirt. That isn't the right texture."

"Are those flowers...painted on there?" Charlie mused.

"Precisely," said Marty, as Victoria nodded silently. They were right — as I squinted out the window, I realized that what I had thought to be the sky was actually a large blue piece of tarp or fabric or something of that sort, with the lilac bushes having been painted on it.

"Sacre bleu!" Felix cried out. "We are trapped in a little fake box with nowhere to run! Oh, the humanity!" He passed his hand over his forehead and collapsed gracefully back into Charlie's arms.

"Oh, pull yourself together," said Charlie, shrugging him off, causing Felix to fall comically onto the floor.

Lucas, Lexa, and Melissa stood there silently, all of them staring dejectedly out of the window. Jack half-heartedly began tapping on the window again, earning him a groan from Buzz. "According to legend," Buzz said, "an Ancient Roman glassmaker invented vitrum flexile — unbreakable flexible glass. The emperor Tiberius executed the glassmaker, in fear that the invention would bring down the value of precious metals and bring Rome's economy to ruins."

"What does that have to do with anything?" asked Jack, who stopped tapping again.

"Absolutely nothing," said Buzz, "except for the fact that humans can be complete idiots. Excuse me." He marched off. I wondered if I should go after him.

"Weirdo," Jack muttered. "By the way, how come it's light outside if it's all fake?"

"That's the clever part," said Marty. "Lucas — care to explain?"

Lucas glanced at Marty sheepishly before speaking. "The, uh, backdrop surrounding the school is made of some sort of reflective material. According to our calculations, there's an object located above the school emitting beams of light. As time passes, the object rotates gradually, causing the light beam's direction to change. The shape of the enclosure causes the light to bounce back towards the school, often through these windows. The result is a simulation of the natural path of the sun."

"What he means," Marty helpfully clarified, "is that right now, in the afternoon, more light's coming out of this window. It's sort of like we're on the west side here. Eventually, it'll be dark out at night. In the morning, the other side of the school — our east side — will be brighter." He pointed at the opposite end of the school. I followed his finger, picturing an imaginary thread leading from its tip forward, through the cafeteria doors, all the way to the row of lockers between the doors to what Victoria had called the band room and the drama storage closet.

It was all a lot to take in. "Why would someone go to all that trouble just to keep us in school?" I wondered out loud.

Marty shrugged. "Who knows? This whole premise is crazy. I don't see how putting us in this situation could benefit anyone."

"And who could have built all of this?" Victoria added. "None of this was here when we arrived at school this morning."

A school bell's four-note melody rang in the air. "Attention!" We all whirled around, looking for the source of the voice I recognized as Monobear's.

I found his face sneering at us from a small monitor mounted above the kitchen cabinets. "Attention!" he cried out again. "This is a school announcement. All students are required to attend an assembly in the gym. Don't you dawdle!"

The screen went dark.

* * *

The nine of us made our way to the gym. Buzz, Hibbert, and Maggie were already there. As we waited, I walked up to Buzz. "You okay?" I asked him.

"What? Fine," he said. "I'm fine."

"Sure about that?" I asked him, hoping he wouldn't get annoyed.

"Of course I'm sure," he said, and strode off. Well, it was worth a try.

Audrey and Jacob came in, laughing together. Elizabeth trailed behind them, her arms crossed as she walked. Finally, Penny scampered into the room. She blushed when we made eye contact and quickly turned away. Poor girl.

"I hope you all have had a pleasant first day!" Once again, Monobear appeared from behind the podium. "Have you found some perfect study spots? Eaten some yummy cafeteria food? Planned some saucy murders? Have you? Haven't you? Hmmmmm?"

"Shut up, you stupid teddy bear!" Maggie shouted. I admired her attitude. "Stop giving us this bullshit and let us out of this hellhole!"

"Hellhole? Upupupu!" Monobear let out a hearty laugh. I felt like I should hate that bear somehow, but instead I stared at it, transfixed. To think that someone was behind it, someone had designed this trap for us...it piqued my curiosity. "You ought to see what it's like outside...but, oh! I've said too much, too early!"

What it's like outside? But I'd just come to the school this morning. Had something happened?

If something had...would that explain the backdrop surrounding the school?

"Won't you please tell us why you asked us to come here, Mr. Monobear?" asked Hibbert politely. "As far as I can tell, nobody appears to have been murdered yet. Perhaps you ought to rethink your approach?"

"You needn't be concerned!" cried Monobear. "I have faith in you yet that a murder will be committed in due course! But first...there is a small matter to be settled. The kitchen doors shall be locked nightly, and you'll need a passcode to open it up each day. Only one student can know this passcode. Who shall it be?"

"Well, that's easy enough, right?" said Jacob. "I mean, it's the kitchen — nobody could be cooking up any evil plots there! Haha, get it? 'Cause you cook in a kitchen, but I said nobody would cook something up in a kitchen! Funny, right? Right?"

"Maybe we should just let Jacob have the passcode," suggested Maggie cheekily. "He's too much of an idiot to be much of a threat."

"H-hey!" Jacob called out.

"I'm not trusting him with my life," Lexa growled. "There's knives in there!"

"Not to mention rolling pins with which to bludgeon someone," Buzz remarked, "Or a sink with which to drown someone. Or a freezer with which to freeze someone. Or —"

"Just...stop," said Charlie.

"We don't want anyone getting any ideas, now do we?" Marty remarked. "Anyway, I think I can be trusted with the passcode, if I do say so myself. I obviously wouldn't forget it —"

"Well, you'd better forget it," said Lexa. "I'm not trusting you either!"

"Come on, Lexa, someone's gotta have it," I told her.

Lexa turned to me. "I...I'd be fine with you having it," she said. Awwww. I was touched.

"Ewww, no, not the creepy morgue girl!" Audrey exclaimed.

"I'm a mortician," I explained calmly. "I work at funeral homes, not morgues. And I'm sure if we got to know each other, you wouldn't think I'm creepy at all." I gave Audrey a smile.

"Whatever," said Audrey. "Maybe Penny should have the passcode! She wouldn't be able to tell anyone what it was even if she wanted to."

Penny reddened and shook her head vigorously.

"Whoever gets it, they'd better be up and early to open the doors for breakfast," said Jack. "Otherwise, they'd be pretty damn useless."

"One question," Lucas said. "Can the person with the passcode lock the kitchen doors as well as unlock it? And would that be from the outside or the inside?"

"Yes, and from both sides," said Victoria. "I examined the locking mechanism when I was investigating the kitchen."

"Perhaps our dear friend Victoria should have the passcode, then, as she's the most familiar with the kitchen's locks?" Hibbert proposed. "Any objections?"

"Oui!" said Felix. "When I see that girl, I get the chills! Chills, I tell you! Brrr!" He shivered, his top hat trembling precariously atop his head.

"Oh, for heaven's sake," muttered Elizabeth before marching up to Monobear. "Passcode, please?"

"Looks like you've come to a decision!" Monobear shouted, before leaning next to Elizabeth's ear. She grimaced and backed away from Monobear as soon as she had gotten what she'd asked for.

"But — you can't just do that!" Melissa cried out.

Elizabeth smirked. "Looks like I just did. Don't worry, I'm an early riser. I won't let you starve. Oh, and I don't shit where I eat." She sauntered off, leaving the rest of us gaping after her.

"Son of a bitch disappeared again," I heard Lexa mutter. Indeed, Monobear was no longer anywhere to be seen.

"Well...that's settled then," I said. "What now?"

"People will notice we've gone off the grid, right?" said Charlie, looking uncertain. "They'll put together a search party and look for us."

"Yeah," Audrey nodded hurriedly. "We'll be out of here in no time!"

"Maybe...we should figure out some way to occupy our time until then," Victoria recommended.

"Oooh, we have such a lovely theater. We must make use of it!" Felix exclaimed. "I shall perform for you all!"

"Audrey and I can put on a comedy sketch together, too!" Jacob insisted. "Right, Audrey? Right?"

Audrey beamed at him. "Of course! It'll be grand!"

Melissa was quick to chime in. "Oh, and Hibbert, you can do your mentalism for us! And, Marty, you could, I don't know, recite pi or something!"

Marty looked highly affronted at this. "What sort of amateur do you take me for?"

We chatted light-heartedly for a while before we all slowly trickled away to our dorms. As I bid the other girls goodnight in the hallway, I took a good look at them.

Lexa and Maggie, both fuming...Charlie, jaws clenched...Victoria, eyes downcast...Melissa and Audrey, wide-eyed and jumpy...Penny and Elizabeth, having already shut out the rest of us from behind their doors. They were all full of fear, scared of death. But they needn't be afraid of death.

Death was a friend, I'd always learned. People could be comfortable around death.

I wasn't scared of death.

Was I?


	4. Cryoscopic Constant: Lucas

"Lucas, are you listening to us?"

I blinked, trying to identify the source of the voice. It took me a while, but then I realized it was none other than Buzz. We guys were supposed to be bonding and hanging out, while the girls were playing some sort of card game.

Hibbert winked at me knowingly, before elbowing me softly, "We were all planning to socialize in the recreation center, to play a few video games or something."

I could feel the blood vessels in my face begin to dilate, causing my cheeks to flush crimson. Nodding, I tried my best to conceal it, although certain other physiological responses were making it difficult to do so.

Marty rolled his eyes playfully at me, but there was something about him that rubbed me the wrong way. Then again, I had a hard time interacting with others in general. At least I wasn't as bad as Penny — I could communicate. But even though I could understand so much about the bonds between chemicals, about the process by which different atoms share electrons, resulting in hybridized orbitals so as to equate the number of bonding sites to the number of valence electrons...I knew nothing about the bonds between people.

The idea that social skills could be brought down to some sort of formula or expression had often been a dream of mine. If I could simply plug in the words I heard and identify the correct response, my life would be so much easier.

Still, that didn't change anything about this current situation...this mutual killing.

"Hey, did that bear ever say if anyone else was in the school besides us?" I posed, looking at the rest of the group. They looked back at me, grimacing as I brought up the uncomfortable truth.

"I don't think he did," Marty said glumly. "Why?"

"If we are alone here, one of _us_ must be behind all of this, then," Hibbert concluded, looking at the expensive flair of his shoes. "Well, no use worrying about it!"

"Shouldn't we try to come up with some plan of escape?" I urged, filing in after the others as we entered the recreational room. It wasn't too horrible of a place, yet it wasn't somewhere I felt inclined to spend time in. I preferred the cleanliness of a lab, and the smell of amines in the air.

"Look, it's pointless," Buzz said with a shrug, kicking back with a soda. "We're all going to die."

"Pardon?" I said.

"Yeah." Buzz paused, taking a sip, before elucidating, "World hunger is skyrocketing as it is, and with idiots like Food Babe, we never actually going to make people eat. More hungry people, more crazy people like in North Korea, and what do you get?"

We all stared at him, completely speechless. He sighed, as if he was dealing with a class of students who were wasting their potential.

"Death! Destruction! Poverty!" He emphasized each word, but his voice was hollow. "We're all going to die, and now that we're trapped in here, there's no use fighting it. The world is going to suck for us no matter how it ends."

"How quaint." I sighed, sitting down on the couch. The television screen may have had a huge crack in it, but they managed to hook up an old GameCube to it somehow. In what seemed to be minutes, they were playing a poorly pixelated version of Super Smash Bros, cackling as they killed each other's players.

It startled me, watching them laugh with such glee at each other's misfortunes. Even Marty was smiling with amusement, his fingers gliding over the controller. He didn't strike me as the type to enjoy video games, but I supposed this was an exception. Hibbert bore a cheeky grin, laughing occasionally as if he could not care less about what he was doing.

It was all just a game, after all.

"But, really, come on...," I began again, clearing my throat in the most awkward manner possible. "Someone here has to be responsible for this."

The only response was the sound of Marty defeating the other two boys, as he survived the sudden death round. Buzz groaned in frustration, while Hibbert patted Marty on the back amiably. Only in such an occasion could they simply resurrect themselves and play again, as if nothing had happened at all.

"Tell me you have at least a guess of who it is," I pestered, "What about you, Hibbert? This type of thing should be right up your...alley..."

I coughed, feeling something tighten. Damn it. It wasn't good to look at him too long. He was more beautiful than the Devil himself, with a dashing smile and just a hint of something wicked lurking behind his eyes. But then again, most intelligent high school students seemed like potential psychopaths. It wasn't anything especially new.

"The probability that anyone in here could figure out the person behind all of this is very low," Marty stated dryly. "Any ideas you could have are merely based off of impressions and assumptions. Heck, for all we know, Buzz here could be the one behind it all!"

They laughed it off, and the discussion was left at that.

* * *

"Man, am I hungry!" Marty said, practically dashing into the cafeteria.

There was hardly anyone else there, aside from one person sitting alone. Her skin was smooth, yet a harsh frown was etched on her face, as if the world had personally insulted her. I couldn't remember her name, but I felt that I recognized her from somewhere outside of the school. Her chin seemed to jut out, and her hair was in perfect condition. Everything about her screamed silent power, yet I remembered what the newspaper girl had said on the first day.

"No one knows who she is!"

Biting my lips, I debated whether or not I should go over and talk to her, to see what was wrong and why she wasn't hanging out with the rest of the females. Or, I could choose the easier option, which would enable me to avoid further human interaction: I could get lunch.

I quickly stepped into the little serving area, grabbing a tray and a hamburger. There were other items available as well, but all of it made my stomach turn, just at the thought of wondering who had made the food. None of us had, but the food had to come from somewhere. Matter cannot created nor destroyed — and matter happens to include food. Who knew.

"You, Doyle!" the girl barked. "Come sit with me."

In my head, I planned out the perfect comeback. It would involve something about her awful looking teeth — actually, they weren't awful at all — and then finish up with something about her intelligence — actually, I thought she was rather keen.

Instead, like a whipped man, I sat down with her.

"I cannot believe I ran into you here, of all places," she scoffed, her nose turned up. "You do know who I am, right? Please tell me you at least know that much."

I frowned, looking her over. Her hair was tightly curled, in a way that looked painful and unnatural. However, it wasn't a mess either — the curls were confined to two pigtails of sorts on the side of her head. Red ribbons almost acted like highlights, bringing in a slight carefree element to the rest of her rather outdated wardrobe. She looked like she was a schoolgirl who took fashion inspiration from Victorian England.

"Eh...I'm sorry, I —"

She huffed, looking around as if to question the stupidity of the world. "I'm Elizabeth Morgan. Yes, yes, that family of Morgans. My mother is the reason you were able to conduct research at such a young age."

"Aren't you...Aren't you kind of rich, then?"

The Morgans were a well known yet secluded family of millionaires. Their wealth came from their lineage, as well as careful investments. Rumor had it that Elizabeth was twelfth in line for the British throne — she could have easily gone through all of the formalities of it, but instead, she had withdrawn into the shadows.

She rolled her eyes, "Obviously. Otherwise, you wouldn't have been allowed access to CERN on such short notice, now would you?"

"Is there a particular reason you wanted to speak to me?"

"You've made your name off of my family's fortune and good will," Elizabeth said, a small smile creeping up her face. "I'd like to imagine you owe me a favor. Meet me tomorrow morning, before the others are awake. The kitchen will be unlocked."

My face flushed, but it wasn't for the same reasons as earlier. A meeting with no one else to witness it? In a place like this, it seemed like a trap for a murder...

"I don't shit where I eat."

But, then again, Elizabeth had basically promised not to murder anyone in the kitchen, right? She couldn't be that deadly, or...maybe she could. Maybe she was one of those freaky nobles, like the sort from Black Butler.

She smiled at me, "Perfect. It's decided then. You'll meet me and complete the task I need for you to do. But for now, I need to go check a few things out...I have a hunch as to who is behind all of this."

And like that, Elizabeth marched out of the room, her figure the very image of confidence. Her shoulders were taut and her back straight, most likely from being made to walk with a book on her head since the age of five. The doors closed loudly behind her, as if her vanishing from the room was a plot development all on its own.

I turned my eyes over to the boys, finding that they were eagerly digging into their food. None of them had noticed that I had separated from the group. Hibbert's blonde head was shaking animatedly, though he bore a leisurely smile; he was engrossed in some sort of argument with Buzz. I imagined myself running over, rattling off the latest scientific theories and winning the debate—I imagined Hibbert nodding at me, his face filled with approval.

Instead, I carefully put my dishes away and left the cafeteria with my hands stuffed into my pockets.

* * *

"Upupupu! Good morning you bastards!" Monobear's voice seemed cheerful yet dry at the same time. It was as if he was getting bored, watching us search this school without any hope of escape. "Make sure you get the most out of this morning...I've prepared a special surprise for you all..."

The intercom went off with a resounding click, and I bit my lip, wondering what his idea of a special surprise would be. If the bear found enjoyment in trapping us here and telling us to kill, would his idea of a gift be something even worse? Would he be giving us weapons to kill with? Or would it be something even more gruesome, like a corpse?

I made my way out of my dorm room, noticing that light was seeping through the cracks of most of the rooms. The other boys were probably still fast asleep—they wouldn't notice if someone left...or if someone else came into the dormitory.

A shiver went down my spine at that thought, and I proceeded to make my way to the commons to grab breakfast. As I crossed the hall, I saw one of the girls coming up the steps from the girls dormitory—it was the actress. She hitched up her long scarlet dress daintily as she mounted the stairs, yet once she was on flat ground, she was able to glide smoothly, without having to lift it at all. It was enchanting to watch, to see someone so beautiful and so put together. She was the picture of grace.

She brushed her blonde hair over her shoulder, before smiling at me dreamily. "Lucas, isn't it?"

I nodded awkwardly, looking down at my feet. It always seemed to be a safe thing to do, in social situations. They usually understood that you were petrified and walked off, allowing you to breathe again.

Audrey's face softened a bit, the way you would when looking at an injured puppy, "Are you doing okay? I know all of this can be...hard...but that doesn't mean we have to let it be, you know? We can just...let ourselves live and dream and know that this won't last forever."

"I...I don't need...thank you," I muttered awkwardly, clenching my hands from nervousness. "You...you're very pretty."

She laughed whimsically, as if I had told her a very odd yet funny joke. Her dark eyes smiled at mine, and she sauntered off, heading towards the cafeteria. Once again, she glided like an angel along the ground, her dress flowing around her. She didn't need to touch it this time—it was all perfect, all planned... This must have been why she was such a successful actress, and only in high school.

It was stunning to simply watch her move.

* * *

"I've prepared a traditional breakfast for us all," Elizabeth said, doing her best to smile kindly. And while she did try, instead it came off as fake and pathetic, as if she was just playing the part. I shivered, remembering dimly that she had wanted to speak to me alone.

Audrey was in the way of whatever Elizabeth desired, and for that, I was thankful.

"Oooh, these waffles look delicious!" Audrey giggled, "I didn't know you could cook!"

"Cooking and baking are easy, really," Elizabeth shrugged, her curls bouncing slightly, "You simply need to be able to read, a skill that I am hopeful most of you do have..."

"You're so funny, Elizabeth!" Audrey said, with only the slightest air of sarcasm.

The rest of the students had begun to file in. Victoria was one of the first, her eyes bloodshot with dark shadows framing them. She looked haunted, her fingers shaking slightly whenever she came into contact with someone. By contrast, Marty looked completely relaxed, waving at me as he walked into a food cart. There were a few sniggers and he turned a shade of red, his composure lost.

"Someone has two left feet," Charlie grinned, walking next to Noella with a plate piled high with meat.

"Come on, you can't possibly eat that much meat," Melissa exclaimed, her eyes wide open. "Think of all the cute little things you're eating right now!"

"And they taste delicious," Charlie smirked, deliberately shoving a mouthful in, "It's all about survival, and it's...natural. We're equipped to eat meat and veggies and all that fun stuff, so there's nothing I find to be particularly wrong with it."

Penny looked on timidly at the entire scene, as if she had an objection with the line of reasoning. Instead, she frantically continued sketching, and from what I could tell, she was drawing each one of us.

"We should discuss what Monobear's surprise is," Victoria stated softly, once everyone was sitting at a single table. "It cannot possibly be anything beneficial."

"I was thinking the same thing," I added, smiling at her appreciatively. My good will seemed to be lost on her, as she continued to stare past me, as if looking for something that no one else could see.

"Maybe it's some sort of...motivation?" Lexa suggested, biting into a doughnut, "I mean, when I'm at the racetrack, they like to try to get us pumped..."

"How in the world is he going to get us pumped for a murder?" Hibbert mused pensively, although his eyes had a knowing twinkle, as if the answer had already come to him.

"He's going to give us a motive," Buzz stated gloomily, "Murders do not happen without motives. Everything happens for a reason. Did you know that one in six murder victims were in an intimate relationship with their killer?"

There were a few murmurs, a few apparently in admiration, and others in disgust. Our group was divided into those who flocked to this morbid lifestyle and those who missed the days when the biggest problem was not having enough followers on Twitter.

"It's not exactly like Monobear can force people to date each other," Audrey mused, giggling softly to herself.

I internally grimaced, my mind instantly flashing to thoughts of the mentalist. I wasn't sure exactly what he had done, and I hated clichés, but...there was something about him that caused me to lose focus, to nearly lose control of my inhibitions.

"Then the motive is going to be something other than that, unless someone here has already fallen smitten," Victoria murmured, her hazel eyes seeming to bore into my skull. Whether it was intentional or not, I was not sure—the girl succeeded in giving most people the creeps. At one moment, she was calm and rational—at the next, she seemed to be filled with morbid energy, moving faster than molecules with high kinetic energy.

"Could it be general paranoia that he's hoping to spread?" Hibbert suggested. "Convince us that people are out to kill us, and then we panic and kill them first."

"Does...anyone else hear that?" Lexa blurted out, but her comment was lost in a sea of whispers. Everyone was shifting in their seats, looking at their food with fear.

"This could be filled with hallucinogens…"

"Which one of us would kill anyone?"

"But we don't even know each other, do we?"

"We're all going to die..."

Elizabeth frowned, surveying the rest of the group, "Enough! Pull yourselves together and think this through calmly! Monobear can only cause you to murder if you let him. If we all choose to remain alive, then we will remain alive."

Victoria sighed. "Unless one of us chooses to kill, and then that entire illusion is shattered."

"We are all as safe as we want to be," Charlie mumbled, grinning slightly. "It's a quote, from a really cool TV show about a detective and his gay lover."

"But this is why civilizations are formed," Buzz commented. "In order to ensure vengeance for the injured. We should agree, right now, to do something similar."

"What would make us any different than those crazy vigilantes?" Lexa cried out, her face painted with annoyance. "We can't decide right from wrong! We're just high school kids, for fuck's sake!"

"There really isn't much difference between us and adults," I stated smoothly. "People who are hardly any smarter than us are allowed to vote and contribute to the government — in fact, some of them are much dumber."

"Then it's settled. We'll use mob justice to discourage anyone from committing murder," Marty reiterated. "That should work."

Everyone nodded in agreement, falling into partial silence. It would have been complete, had it not been for a soft noise, a noise — no, voices that were steadily growing louder.

I felt a chill as I recognized one of the voices. It was my little sister. It was her scream.

"I..." I had trouble finding the right words to say. "I thought it was just us in here..."

Victoria looked shaken. "You hear it as well?" she blurted out, running towards the door of the cafeteria.

"It is just us," Hibbert said, without any hint of his usual amusement. "That's the sound of the dead."


	5. Disillusioned: Hibbert

The other boys were so boring. They were transparent, malleable, predictable. They were the ones I practiced on — just for fun.

It had always been just for fun. There was a time in life in which everything I did was for the fun of it. I never knew my parents, never had a real family, so I often suffered from boredom. I occupied myself by playing with minds.

It was really rather straightforward. I called them friends, but they weren't really. All of the other boys were just sort of...pawns. There to be used. Occasionally promoted. Usually toppled.

That was, until Danny came along. He was different. He was unconditionally kind. He understood me, an unparalleled feat, but I could never quite understand him. That was what drew me to him.

He taught me to put up walls, to hide who I really was. He taught me how to talk to people, and he taught me how to pretend I liked them. I could read people, he could charm them. Together, we were unstoppable.

One day, he died. And I became reader and charmer both.

* * *

My assertion had brought about a few stares from some of the others. I knew from experience that people tended to find themselves reliant on me for a sense of calm, a sense of security. Hearing the voices — one voice in particular — had disrupted my composure like a lightning bolt short-circuiting an intricate machine. I needed to recover, and I needed to do so quickly.

I grinned a humorless but gentle grin. "I mean that metaphorically, of course." I didn't mean it metaphorically at all, of course. I had recognized Danny's scream immediately — I heard his voice in my head almost daily — and I had mistakenly assumed that the other screams were of the dead as well. I should have known that the assumption was false, as assumptions tend to be; the chances that all sixteen of us had known someone who had died was slim. "I mean, of course, that the voices aren't really here. We don't need to worry about them."

I looked around at the others. Lucas caught my eye first; his face was very pale. His mouth formed a word — a name, probably, given the circumstances — Sharon, was it, or perhaps it was Sherry? His sister, from the looks of it. That was it, yes — the screams were of those we cared about the most. I had to admit, it was a clever way to provoke a reaction from us.

I scanned more faces — Melissa, also a little sister; Lexa, a precocious little brother; Felix's mother, Jack's older sister, Charlie's dad, Audrey's boyfriend, Marty's mother, Jacob's aunt, Noella — the old man under which she must have apprenticed. The others were a little harder to read.

The screams had grown louder; people were covering their ears. Jack's fists were clenched, Victoria's jaw was hardened as she stood by the cafeteria doors, Marty's eyes darted anxiously around the room, Audrey was sobbing, Jacob's right arm was trembling noticeably.

"Stop it!" It was Noella who was the first to speak, which was a mild surprise. "Stop it now!" She had to shout to make herself be heard over the din.

The bear appeared, seemingly out of nowhere as always. His cackle rang above the tortured cries, which by now had blended into a terrifying symphony of despair and anguish.

"Upupupupu! What's this?" Monobear said. "Oh, my! Are you scaaaared yet? Aaaare you are you are you?"

"Mr. Monobear," I said in a calm tone, for animosity would do no good, "I'm sure you had some lovely music planned for us, but I'm sorry to say we're all much too uncultured to appreciate your fine artistry. Perhaps you could lower the volume a bit? We would all appreciate it tremendously."

"Th-that's right!" Audrey seemed to have caught on. "It's lovely, er, music, but I don't think this is quite the audience for it."

"You...don't like it?" Monobear said, his head bowed, in a voice he seemed to believe would conjure pity but instead sent a chill down my spine. "I'm...so sad...it took me...so long...to prepare it..."

"What does this mean?" Victoria inquired, her face grim, her eyes flashing with anger. "Where did these screams come from?"

"From the speakers, of course!" the bear explained. "Where else do sounds come from in schools?"

"That's not what she means!" shouted Melissa. "We want to know where you recorded these...these screams from! What did you do to Minnie?"

Monobear leaned forward, his red, jagged eye giving off a malevolent glare. "Upupupu! Doesn't it make you wonder? Doesn't it make you shiver? Doesn't it give you goosebumps? Graduate, and you'll find out what happened to all sixteen of our special guests!"

"And, by 'graduate,'" Charlie clarified hesitantly, "you mean...murder someone?"

"Charlie," Lexa shouted with a scowl, "shut up!"

"That's exactly what I mean!" Monobear replied. "It's simple, isn't it? If you make it out of the school successfully, you can find out what happened to your dear dearest dearies!"

I knew what had happened to Danny. I was quite certain that he was dead as a doornail. But the others — they were frightened, and quite understandably so.

It was, then, my responsibility to speak up. "Mr. Monobear, if I may ask just one question — are you quite sure these voices are not simply computer-generated, and in fact all of these people are alive, safe, and well?" As alive, safe, and well as we last saw them was what I meant, of course, which was hardly saying much in my case.

"Oh?" Monobear cocked his head to the side. "In your case, certainly! You have no family and no friends, so I had to whip something up from the depths of your mind! But don't let that fool you into thinking the others are all like that, oh no, no, no! Upupupupu!" With that, the bear vanished.

It took a few moments for us to realize it, but the voices had vanished, too. For a while, there was silence.

Then the room erupted with noise as everyone talked at once.

"Th-that voice..."

"I heard —"

"It...it can't be, can it?"

"Oh, no...oh no oh no oh no..."

"Maman!"

"Come, now," I said, in a voice that seemed quiet yet commanded attention, perfected by years of stage performance. "There's no need for us to fret. We knew that bear was bound to do something like this, and this is it. He's trying to identify our psychological weaknesses, but we don't have to let him. There's no reason for us to believe those screams are genuine."

"Easy enough for you to say," said Jack with a scoff. "You haven't got anyone to worry about." Had it really been necessary for him to say that? I resisted the urge to glare at him.

"Hibbert's right!" Noella stood up as she spoke; I gave her a grateful smile. "We don't have to believe Monobear. We have to keep our spirits up!"

"I, for one, shall refuse to submit to his nonsense," proclaimed Elizabeth. "I trust that none of you shall, either. Isn't that right?" She gave us all a terribly forced smile; she was in desperate need of a couple of pointers.

Eventually, all of the students murmured some form of consent or other. Audrey suggested that we all practice the acts we had planned for the show we had decided to put on. I didn't really need the practice, but I agreed; we needed something to distract us from what we had just heard.

Or else someone might do something permanent.

* * *

After everyone had dispersed, I wandered around the school alone. Marty, Lucas, and Buzz had decided to design some sort of game show where each would quiz the other two on various subjects, and they were figuring out the logistics of the program in the drama storage room. Next door in the music room, Noella, Melissa, Charlie, Maggie, and Lexa had formed a band and were practicing fervently; I didn't dare disturb them.

I wandered over to the auditorium to find a bickering pair.

"We need an actual stage to practice on!" Audrey was saying.

Felix glared at her menacingly, gesticulating frantically as he shouted, "It was I who made it here first! I claimed it for myself! This stage belongs to moi!"

"You didn't get here first at all!" Audrey screamed in his face, her cheeks reddening with fury. "Jacob, when we got here this morning, Felix wasn't here, was he?"

Jacob grimaced; he really didn't look like he wanted to be dragged into the argument. He muttered something incoherent, before letting out a nervous spout of laughter.

"I was here on the very first day!" Felix proclaimed. "I have full rights to it!"

"You know, you should check out the gym," I called out to them as I leaned against the doorframe of the theater's entrance. "Much better acoustics." I flashed the three of them a grin as they gaped at me, no doubt unsure of how to respond. Then I turned around and left, making a mental note to come back and check on who would be the one to give in.

I passed Jack in the hallway and gave him a little nod; he nodded back, leaning against one wall and bouncing a small rubber ball against the wall opposite. Jack was undoubtedly a testosterone-fueled prick, yes, but he was also awfully easy on the eyes. I let out a wistful sigh as I reached the end of the hall.

I was glad to find the recreational room empty. I lay down on the couch and allowed myself to relax, letting out all of the tension I had built up that day. I didn't dare sleep, of course — I'd read the rules in the electronic student handbooks Monobear had left for us on the first day — but I stayed there and daydreamed, the next best thing.

* * *

I woke up rather late the next morning. When I entered the cafeteria, I found Lucas, Buzz, and Marty hunched over several sheets of paper scattered atop their table; they had already finished their breakfast.

"Impressive," I remarked with a smile, pulling over a chair to sit next to them. "I'm look forward to enjoying the show."

Buzz looked disproportionately alarmed as he rapidly shuffling the papers in front of him; I could hardly tell whether he was trying to organize them or increase the mess. "You can't see this yet! It'll ruin the spirit of the show!"

I laughed. "So I see. Why aren't you in the drama storage room again?"

"It was locked," Lucas said, averting my gaze for some reason I couldn't quite fathom. "Somebody was in there, probably."

"Very well." Glancing at the three of them, I noted the shielded expressions on their faces. "I know when I'm not wanted," I remarked, grinning light-heartedly at them, before heading over to another table, where Audrey and Jacob were chatting animatedly to an obviously irritated Victoria.

"Oh, good," Victoria muttered when she saw me approach, and she excused herself from her seat.

"Oh, Hibbert, you must come watch our show!" Audrey exclaimed passionately. "Quick, come with me!"

She suddently grabbed my wrist with her right hand and Jacob's hand with her left, and before I could protest, she had led us out of the cafeteria, running eagerly down the hall in the direction of the theater, her long, scarlet dress billowing about her ankles.

We made it to the theater in record time. "Here we are!" said Audrey, hitching up her dress to mount a couple of steps onto the stage before beckoning Jacob to follow her. Jacob shrugged at me, looking a little overwhelmed, before hopping up onto the stage next to her.

"Make yourself comfortable," said Audrey, pointing to the plush red theater chairs.

"Nobody is to be comfortable!" came a loud shout from the other end of the theater. I turned to find Felix, who was sporting a pouty expression.

"You lied to moi!" Felix continued, marching down the aisle defiantly and pointing at me with an angry finger. "The acoustics of the gym were downright unbearable! It was no place to be performing!"

"...You know what, Audrey, Jacob, I think I'm going to go," I told them, ignoring the shouts of the diva. "I look forward to seeing your performance during the actual show!"

"Get off my stage!" Felix was screaming. "Get out!"

"Come on, Audrey," Jacob said. "Maybe...maybe we should go practice in the storage closet?"

"Locked," I informed them, recalling Lucas's words. I considered recommending the recreational room to them, but I had grown awfully fond of that couch in there. I headed out one of the side doors, figuring — quite correctly, as it turned out — that it was faster to get to the recreational room that way.

"Hey, Hibbert!" Noella called after me as I was just about to enter the recreational room; she gave me a friendly wave. "Have you seen Lexa? We haven't been able to find her all morning."

"Can't say I have," I told her. "Let me guess, she's your...bass player?"

Noella laughed, giving me a nod. "That's right."

"And you're a pianist, I see." I couldn't resist making the observation.

Noella mimed playing some invisible keys in front of her. "Yup!"

"Charlie, probably a guitarist. Maggie must be your vocalist, while Melissa plays percussion." I grinned. "How was that?"

"I'm impressed," Noella replied with a giggle. "Lexa did look kind of out of it last night, so I thought maybe she felt sick, but I didn't find her in her room."

"Check the restrooms," I suggested from experience, pointing down the hall to a pair of restroom doors.

"Melissa's checking those already, I think," Noella informed me. "But thanks for the advice, anyway!" She skipped off. I smiled after her, before heading inside the recreational room and settling down on the couch once more.

Judging from the brightness outside, it was already a few hours into the afternoon when the door swung open and Felix emerged, kicking some sort of glass bottle into the room.

Before I could pick it up, he exclaimed, "I demand refreshment!"

I was in no mood to cross him, so I tossed him a bottle of sparkling water that had been sitting on the counter. Then I closed the door in his face, picked up the glass bottle by the neck, and tossed it into the recycling bin in the corner of the room.

I collapsed back onto the couch. I felt something sticky on my fingers.

I looked down at my hand, the one with which I had picked up the bottle. It was stained with something red.

The coppery scent of blood filled my nostrils.

I felt an overwhelming urge to vomit. I bit my lip, trying to hold it back. I heard a raspy sound. I soon realized it was the sound of my own heavy breathing.

Then I blacked out.

* * *

I woke to the sound of static emitting from the cracked television screen. Rubbing my eyes, I sat up and stared into it.

I regretted this action almost immediately when I was met with the unsavory sight of Monobear, who opened his mouth to speak as a short jingle played.

"A body has been discovered! Following a brief period of investigation, the school trial shall commence!"

My mouth suddenly felt very dry.

Then the screen fizzled out and went dark.

My heart pounded heavily in my chest, the connections whirring in my brain.

 _"Why aren't you in the drama storage room again?"_

 _"It was locked."_

 _"Have you seen Lexa? We haven't been able to find her all morning."_

Why hadn't I noticed it before? I ran as fast as I could through the hall towards the drama storage room. It was illogical, of course; there was no need to run. I knew what must be there, awaiting me. No matter how fast I ran, I could not run back in time.

The door to the drama storage room was open; Jack, Elizabeth, Melissa, Jacob, Charlie, Noella, and Maggie were already standing in the doorway. Despite my fears, I felt an inexplicable temptation to see the scene with my own eyes; I gently squeezed between Noella and Charlie to get a full view of the room. Directly opposite the door was a large window. Below that window was the snack counter, its right side scattered with toppled bottles, while the bottles on the left were undisturbed.

My eyes shifted further downwards. There was Lexa, lying on the floor faceup, her head pointed towards us, her legs bent underneath her with her knees almost against the front of the counter, a belt lying across the front of her shirt, her eyes shut, her hair disheveled, her head surrounded by a pool of blood.

I twisted away from the corpse in front of me, from that sickening sight, the blood on the floor like a puddle of rain. My breath caught in my throat as I attempted to stay calm, to smile as I always did. But I stumbled and I almost fell — I reached out and grabbed Charlie's shoulder for support.

"Hibbert!" she cried out in alarm. "What's...what's on your hand?"

I glanced over, looking at the blood that had dried upon my fingers.

The blood of the dead.


	6. Mystified: Hibbert

_Out, damned spot! Out, I say!_

The intensity with which I rubbed my hands was burning my fingers, yet I couldn't stand looking dark splotches on my fingers much longer.

Eventually satisfied that all traces had come off my skin, I turned off the faucet and dried my hands before reemerging from the restroom.

I was met with furtive glances as I stepped out. I had managed to calm myself and explain to the others where the blood had come from, but some of them remained wary of me — understandably so, I had to admit. Looking around, I noted that Buzz, Marty, and Lucas had joined us.

Elizabeth and Melissa had retrieved the bloody glass bottle from the recreational room. It had been my recommendation that two people do the task, so that neither could tamper with any evidence while the other was watching.

"I see the smudges where you grabbed it," Elizabeth informed me, "though there isn't much blood on the rest of the bottle."

"So who discovered the body?" Buzz asked.

"Me," Jacob told us. "Well — Audrey and I did. We'd been told the drama closet was locked, so we were just rehearsing right outside of it. Then we realized we'd been at it for a while, past lunch, so I thought we should get some refreshments. Then I noticed the closet door was actually unlocked, so we went inside and...and..." Jacob began to tremble.

"Awww, hey," Noella said, giving Jacob a gentle squeeze on the shoulder. "Just take a deep breath, okay?"

"Y-yeah," Jacob muttered, before continuing. "I was...dazed, I couldn't move. Audrey...she...she went up and touched the body and got her hands all bloody and...and then she just ran out of there. I waited a long time for her to come back, but...I ended up looking for help, and I ran into these two." He pointed to Elizabeth and Jack — an unlikely pair.

"I...I can't believe it," Charlie stammered. "Lexa...she's really...dead?"

"I'm afraid so," Noella replied. "I checked on...on her. It looked like she was hit over the head really hard."

"Upupupupu!" Monobear appeared behind Noella. "You're absolutely right. Take a look at this!" He pulled out a tablet and handed it to her.

Looking over Noella's shoulder, I read its brief contents out loud.

"'Monobear File, number one. Victim: Lexa Axel. Cause of death: blunt force trauma to the head. Location of death: drama storage closet. External wounds: wound to front left side of forehead, multiple wounds to back of head.'"

"Can you guarantee that everything you tell us about the murder is the truth?" Victorica asked as she joined us, seemingly out of nowhere as Monobear had. Her expression appeared peaceful, but I noticed her hands were stuffed inside her pockets in distress.

"Of course!" the bear replied. "It's only fun when you have all of the facts, after all. That way, in the moments before your deaths, you'll be oh so full of despair when you realize what huge fools you were for not figuring it all out!"

"If we're not already concerned about our impending doom, that is," Buzz remarked sullenly, once Monobear had vanished once again.

"Don't talk like that!" Melissa berated him. "We can do this, right? We'll find out who did this and avenge Lexa's death!"

"But we're amateurs, aren't we?" Lucas pointed out. "We don't have any forensic services or anything. There's nothing we can do."

"We'll just do what detectives do in the movies and books," Charlie suggested. I could tell she was attempting to inject some sort of optimism in her words, but her voice cracked at the last syllable. "Right? We'll find the clues, figure out who has an alibi and who doesn't, and then we'll be able to solve the murder!"

"In fact, we have some valuable information already," Elizabeth proclaimed. "I expect all of the students to gather in the cafeteria within five minutes. We have important things to discuss." She marched into the cafeteria, her head held high.

"We should get the others," Noella suggested. "Where's Penny?"

"Audrey and I passed her right around here," Jacob said, pointing to the lockers between the drama storage room and the music room. "N-not that I think she did it!" he added hurriedly. "I mean, there wasn't any blood on her or anything!"

"Couldn't you have cleaned yourself up in there, though?" Charlie wondered. "Maybe a sink or something?"

"No sink," Victoria stated. "I also thought maybe somebody could have wiped their hands off on one of the costumes in there, but the costume racks appear to have been moved out of the room."

"Ah, that was us, yesterday," Marty said. "We thought the place was a little too cramped, so we moved all that stuff into the theater. Anyway, Audrey and Felix are both still missing, too. Hibbert, didn't you say you saw Felix a while ago?"

"Indeed I did," I said. Eventually, Melissa and Jacob were sent to find Audrey, while Noella and Charlie were sent to get Penny. I headed to the theater with Lucas to find Felix.

Walking along the hallway away from the drama storage room, I stumbled a little as I felt something sticky underneath my shoes. I assured myself that it was not quite the consistency of blood.

I heard Lucas murmur something beside me. "Sorry, what was that?" I asked him, giving him a small grin of reassurance.

"Nothing," he said quickly, blushing deeply, but it clearly wasn't nothing, for he then said with hesitancy, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," I said, still smiling at him. "Yeah, I'm fine. The, ah, fainting," I mentioned, when he gave me an odd look, "is a simple physiological response, really. Don't worry about me."

He gave me a startlingly fierce stare. "You don't have to hide it from me," he informed me.

For once, I wasn't quite sure what to say. His words had been uncomfortably perceptive, yet at the same time they were oddly touching.

I couldn't bring myself to lie to him again. But I couldn't tell him the truth, either — "But I do."

Fortunately, we had already arrived at the front of the theater. Opening the doors, I called out, "Felix?"

There was no answer. Nobody was there.

"Where is he?" Lucas asked.

How long had I been out for? I wondered this as I recalled Felix's presence at the recreational room. Depending on that, the answer could vary, but all things considered he was —

"Probably in his dorm," I suggested. "Let's take a look."

Pushing the door open, we found Felix lying on his bed, his eyes closed, his hands crossed neatly in front of him, those pale, unblemished hands exactly as I remembered them from when he took a bottle of sparkling water from me. I could tell there was something smoothly hidden beneath them, most likely something of importance — perhaps a gift from a lover.

"Felix?" I called out to him in as friendly a voice as I could manage, given that our last few meetings had been less than amiable. "Sorry to wake you up, Felix, but..."

I trailed off. Felix was not moving.

"Felix?" I repeated, raising my voice. "Felix, wake up."

Still no movement.

I edged closer to him, nudging him gently. A wave of relief passed over me when I found his skin to still be warm. "Hey, Felix!"

Finally, he stirred. Mumbling something, he opened his eyes, before rapidly bolting upright. "How dare you disturb my beauty rest!" he yelled in my face.

"Didn't you hear the announcement?" Lucas asked. "There was a murder."

"Murder? Mon dieu!" Felix exclaimed, still in my face; I learned my lesson and backed away from him a little. "Who was the victim of this murder most foul?"

"Lexa," I said, as a pang of guilt hit me. I had not known Lexa all that well; I was investigating her death not to help bring her killer to justice, not even for vengeance, but simply out of a sense of self-preservation.

But she was dead, and there was nothing more to do for her, I assured myself. I had to focus. "Did you perhaps see anything suspicious after we ran into each other?"

"Nothing at all," he stated with certainty. "I went through the theater and directly back to the dorms as soon as I had gotten my refreshment. In that brief minute of time I saw nothing."

Lucas let out a sigh. I turned to him and asked, "You didn't notice anything either, did you?"

Lucas shook his head. "Once we'd figured out the logistics of the show, we started coming up with quiz questions on our own. I was sitting in the corner of the cafeteria, while Buzz and Marty paced around."

"And I'm guessing you were all pretty focused?" I mused.

"If you're saying one of us could have snuck out and killed Lexa while the others weren't paying attention," Lucas muttered, "then yes, I suppose that's entirely possible."

I nodded, staring at Lucas, deep in thought.

"I am still here, you know," Felix said, having somehow gotten into my face yet again. "And, now that you remind me, I saw something very suspicious indeed!"

I gave him a look of dry amusement. "Didn't you just say you hadn't?"

"You asked me if I had seen anything suspicious _after_ we met, n'est-ce pas?" Felix pointed out.

I spotted Lucas rolling his eyes. "So you saw something suspicious beforehand, I presume?" I checked with Felix.

"Exactement!" Felix said, glowering at us.

We waited for him to continue. He continued to glower at us.

"And?" I said, keeping my patience in check by allowing myself only the tiniest bit of stress on the single syllable.

"It was the actress!" Felix exclaimed. "Immediately before I met with you, I saw her hurry into the restroom with her hands bloodied!"

"That corroborates Jacob's statement," Lucas observed with a nod. "He said Audrey ran off after they found the body."

"We should let the others know where Audrey is," I pointed out. "Come on."

"Aha!" Felix shouted. "I have solved the case singlehandedly, it seems!"

Rendered speechless, I decided to give Felix a quick all-purpose grin. Lucas was already heading out of the room.

As Felix and I followed Lucas out the hall, we heard a voice — that voice. "Well, well, well! I hope you've been having tons of fun!"

I turned to find Monobear, standing in front of the entrance to the stairway of the girls' dormitories.

"What do you want?" Lucas growled, with such an intensity as I had never seen from him before.

"Awww, Lukey no likey me helpy?" the bear whined, his head drooping against his chest. "Fine...I'll just go away then..." To my immense surprise, he turned around and trudged off.

"What did he mean by helping us?" I mused, looking down the stairway perplexed.

"Helping your investigation, of course!"

We jumped, startled to find that Monobear had appeared once again behind us. "The girls' dorms are now open to the public!" he announced. "But oooooonly for investigating, you know! Don't let me catch you being pervy little teenagers! Upupupupu!"

"Why, thank you very much, Mr. Monobear," I told the bear with as natural a smile as I could manage given the circumstances. "We'll be sure to watch ourselves."

After the bear had disappeared once more, we headed down the steps and found the metal door to the dorm rooms hanging open. Stepping through the doorway, we found ourselves in a rather spacious lounge.

"What is this!" Felix exclaimed. "They have a television set and a sofa? This is an affront to mankind!"

We went down the left hall, glancing at the flamboyant decorations on the four doors, which I guessed was Monobear's work. "What are we looking for, exactly?" Lucas wondered.

"I believe it may benefit to investigate Lexa's own room," I suggested. "After all, she was already showing signs of discomfort last night, correct?"

Lucas nodded and Felix shrugged. As the pair of them headed towards Lexa's door, I spotted a pair of stairways in the back of the lounge. My curiosity getting the better of me, I told the other two to go on without me before hurrying down the steps.

I flipped the lights on — and I gasped.

* * *

"I told you," I said, "I'm —"

"— perfectly fine, sure, yeah," Lucas muttered, the irony palpable in his tone.

I nodded. The blood and the scratches had obviously been too old to be relevant to the case at hand — troubling, yes, but too old to be relevant, I assured myself. I made a mental note to ask Victoria about it later.

"What did you find in Lexa's room?" I asked the other two.

"The regular room of a regular teen girl," Felix spoke in a rather poetic manner. "Cosmetic products scattered everywhere, a curling iron still plugged in — oh, what a tragic scene!"

"...Yeah," Lucas added.

Together, the three of us returned to the hall in front of the drama storage room door. The door was hanging open by a slim few inches outwards into the hall. Near the doorway, barely inside the room, were several shards of curved glass, surrounded by a dark-colored liquid.

"Maybe that's what killed Lexa," Charlie remarked beside me. "I don't think any of the other bottles were broken. And look, there's a bit of blood mixed in with all the soda there — oh, sorry." She muttered the apology quickly, leaving me rather disconcerted, staring at those glass shards lying on the concrete floor of the storage room.

"Do you know — were there ever any bottles of water in the storage closet?" Marty was asking Buzz and Victoria, both of whom shook their heads.

"They were all soft drinks," Buzz remarked. "Terribly unhealthy, if you ask me."

I noticed that Penny had been located. Unsurprisingly, she was scribbling away at her notebook, her pencil clutched between her fingers so tightly that her knuckles were white.

Just then, Audrey appeared around the corner, flanked by Noella and Jacob. Noella's arm was wrapped around Audrey's shoulders in a comforting gesture, while Jacob looked very uncomfortable beside them, his hands stuffed in his pockets. Audrey herself was sobbing into her hands.

"We'll get your dress cleaned up, okay?" Noella assured her.

"We found her in the girls' bathroom," Jacob told us. "I didn't go in there!" he added quickly. "Noella did!"

"Lexa...she was...she was so still," Audrey was muttering. "Blood...blood everywhere..."

I gulped, noticing the two symmetrical patches of blood on her dress near her waist. I turned away and headed inside the cafeteria.

Elizabeth was standing in the center of the cafeteria, her arms crossed, her expression grim. The rest of us were scattered about the area, looking at her expectantly.

"If we wish to figure out the identity of the murderer," Elizabeth began, "we must establish a timeline of the events of the day. Who was the last to see Lexa alive?"

"We couldn't find her all day!" Maggie exclaimed. "Last night after dinner she said she felt like puking and went to bed early."

"She seemed fine when I saw her this morning," Victoria noted. "But she never did show up at breakfast."

"You saw her this morning?" Melissa asked, jotting notes down on her legal pad. "Where?"

"Right outside the dorms," replied Victoria. "I'd just come out of my room. Weren't you there too, Elizabeth?"

"I was," Elizabeth agreed, nodding. "Lexa was just heading up the stairs out the hallway."

"Then why did you waste our time asking us who saw her last?" Maggie whined.

"Well, I obviously didn't know I was the last one to see her, did I?" Elizabeth pointed out impatiently. "That is, unless anybody else spotted her while she was alive this morning?"

I shook my head as the others shook theirs.

"Very well," Elizabeth said after scanning each of us with her eyes in turn. "Now we need to figure out —"

"Didn't you say you had information to tell us?" Victoria interrupted. I glanced over at her, intrigued by her pointed tone; for some reason she seemed to be very uptight.

"I'll get to that," Elizabeth continued, looking irritated at the intrusion. "But first, we need to see if we can narrow down the identity of the killer."

"Oh!" said Charlie, garnering another look of disapproval from Elizabeth. "Are you asking which of us have alibis for the time of the murder? Me and Maggie and Melissa and Noella were together in the band room all day, so none of us could have done it."

"That's right!" Melissa said eagerly. "You can rule us out!"

"Don't be stupid, we all split up to look for Lexa, remember?" Maggie pointed out, her eyebrows raised significantly. "Maybe one of you found her, hmm?"

"W-what's that supposed to mean?" Melissa cried, biting her lip. "That can't be!"

"Besides, we don't even know when the time of death _was_ ," said Buzz with a sigh. "This is obviously hopeless."

"You," Elizabeth said, looking directly at Noella. "Could you determine the time of death?"

"I'm a mortician," Noella explained patiently, "not a morgue attendant. I guess I've never had to figure out something like that before. Still, Maggie's right. We've got to be careful about who really has an alibi and who doesn't. I...I can't say for sure none of us band girls were responsible."

"Same goes with us guys, I guess," Marty spoke with a shrug. "True, we should have been in the cafeteria the whole time, but I did manage to sneak out for a quick trip to the bathroom at one point and nobody noticed."

Knowing it would be my turn eventually, I had been exploring possibilities of what to say. As anyone who has ever spent the day alone doing absolutely nothing when there were other options available would know, it can be difficult to admit that one spent the day alone in the doing absolutely nothing, as I had. Besides, I knew some of them already suspected me. "I'm afraid I've been alone for the whole day," I confessed with a light-hearted smile. "Nobody to vouch for me, I'm sorry to say."

Felix, on the other hand, was quite eager to explain that he had been alone as well. "But why on earth are we wasting our time? It is obvious that the killer was you!" He swung his arm over his shoulder with a swoosh and pointed his outstretched finger directly at Audrey, who burst into further tears.

I saw Lucas roll his eyes as I explained what it was Felix had seen, leaving Felix looking rather miffed.

"Audrey — sh-she can't have done it," Jacob claimed. "And neither could I! She and I were together all morning. We had breakfast together, we went to the theater together, and then we ended up practicing in front of the drama closet from morning to the afternoon."

"But you two came to breakfast kind of late!" Melissa said, flipping back through her notes in an apparent attempt to confirm what she had said to be the truth. "Before the two of you met at breakfast, either of you could have done it, right?"

Jacob scratched the side of his right arm with his left hand sheepishly. "I...I guess. Wait, no, that's not true!"

"So nobody has an alibi, and we still know nothing," Buzz lamented. "Great. Enjoy our last day, guys."

"Wait," Marty said, ruffling the hair on the back of his head with his right hand, "but there's something we _do_ know now, isn't there? If Jacob and Audrey were standing right in front of the door to the storage closet for most of the day —"

"— then the murder must have occurred in the morning," Victoria finished for him. "In case you were wondering, I don't have an alibi for that time, either."

Elizabeth nodded. "Excellent. This is progress. I believe I am ready to reveal what I know. Jack?"

I glanced over at the tall, muscle-bound Jack, his left hand spinning that rubber ball of his. "Um," he said, "something weird happened when I got out of my room this morning. I woke up kinda late, see, and...I was attacked."

"What?" Marty looked confused. "What happened?"

Jack said, his brow furrowed, "Somebody came up to me and wrapped something around my neck and tried to choke me."

"Strangle," I heard Lucas mutter a correction.

"Whatever," said Jack. "I blacked out. I almost died! Look." He turned around and pulled back the collar of his shirt to show a continuous, purple, bruised band around the back of his neck.

"I found him lying in the male dormitory," Elizabeth explained.

"What were you doing there?" Melissa asked, sporting a curious expression.

"Not important," Elizabeth said hurriedly. "The point is, he was lying there in the hallway. I did not want to touch him, so I prodded him in the face with my pen until he woke up." Poor guy.

"His memory was hazy at first," Elizabeth continued, "but I managed to coax the story out of him. A few minutes later, Jacob came running in, screaming his head off. You already know what happened afterwards.

"I've compared Jack's bruises to the Lexa's belt, which was found lying across her body. They match up perfectly. Now, this is very important. There is the possibility that Lexa's murderer and Jack's attacker were one and the same. There is also a chance that they were not. If, indeed, the latter possibility is the correct one, whoever attacked Jack may possess valuable information pertaining to the solution of this case. It is therefore to that person's advantage to confess to having conducted the attack. Would anyone like to step forward?"

Nobody replied. Nobody moved.

"...Fine," Elizabeth stated simply. "You are all dismissed."

* * *

I stood in the hallway, leaning against the lockers and staring at that sticky patch on the floor below my feet, pondering all that I had seen and heard. Who had killed Lexa? Who had attacked Jack? If it had been two different people, why wasn't Jack's attacker speaking up? And if it had been the same person...what was the point?

Glancing over at the door to the room in which Lexa's body lay, I regretted the fact that I didn't have the nerve to take another look inside.

I felt a tug on the back of my shirt. Turning around, I saw Penny looking up at me, her eyes open wide.

"Why, hello there, dear," I said to her with a friendly grin. "What's up with you?"

Penny tore a sheet of paper out of her notepad and handed it to me. I took a look.

The sheet was white and clean — except, of course, for the picture upon it. Penny apparently had taken on the role of the crime scene photographer. The picture was an exact replica of the scene I had come across in the drama storage room — yet somehow, Penny's rendition added an ethereal beauty to the image.

Lexa had been a beautiful girl. Her hair was sleek and shiny against the concrete floor, even when specked with blood; her eyes were closed with her eyelashes long and curled, her lips full. Her belt — that belt which had come close to killing — lay carelessly across her chest. The counter cast a long shadow over her legs, which were bent underneath her at the knees.

Some say that people look calm in death, that they could almost be sleeping. Lexa did not look like she was sleeping. Her expression was pained, frustrated, sick of the world. She looked restless, almost as if she was ready to pounce on her killer.

But she would not have that opportunity. She was dead, and that torch had been passed on to us.


	7. Mental Gymnastics: Hibbert

**Thanks for the lovely reviews!**

* * *

"Zzzzzz...it's so boring watching all of you run amok! Well, well, it can't be helped, I suppose. It's always darkest before the dawn! Upupupupu! Things are about to get beeeary interesting! Please proceed to the gymnasium immediately."

I folded Penny's picture neatly in half and tucked it away into my back pocket. There was nothing to do but obey that bear. Like lambs sent to the slaughterhouse, we all walked in the direction of the gym.

"So...what happens now?" Melissa asked from beside me. Clasped between her fingers, her pen wobbled a little as if it itched to write.

"Wha...what...woah!" Jacob stumbled and abruptly fell onto the ground, bottom first. Beneath him, a silver square had suddenly rose a few inches off of the gym's wooden floor, forming a sort of platform upon which Jacob sat.

Elizabeth marched onto it, standing on the corner farthest away from Jacob, as if she were intentionally avoiding him. "Well, come on, then!"

I saw no harm in following suit, so I ambled onto the silver platform. The others were a little more hesitant, but as soon as all thirty of our feet were firmly on the square, it began to sink back into the ground.

"An elevator," Lucas murmured beside me. "Interesting design."

Soon our heads were below the surface of the gym, and the darkness enveloped us. As we sank, the truth sank into us as well.

At least one of us wasn't coming back up.

* * *

It was a few moments later before we could see our feet again. As the platform slowed to a halt, I hopped off of it neatly and took stock of the place in which we had arrived. Purple, diamond-checkered wallpaper surrounded the circular room with half a dozen red velvet curtains at regular intervals. On one end of the room was a metal door that resembled that of a garage, while directly opposite was a massive throne. There sat Monobear, legs crossed as if lounging in a beach chair.

In the center of the room was a circle enclosed by curved wooden podiums. I spotted placards posted upon each one. Buzz Triton, I read on the one closest by. Walking clockwise around the podiums, I checked each in turn. Jack Richards. Audrey Felicion. Charlie Bradbury.

Aha. Hibbert Knowles. And to my left...

...There stood a framed portrait of Lexa, an ominous crimson X drawn over her face.

"Let's start with a simple explanation of the class trial!" Monobear had begun, once we had all filed in behind our podiums. "The trial's result is determined by your votes. If the correct culprit is selected, they alone will be punished. However, if the wrong person is voted for, everyone other than the culprit will be punished! The culprit alone will be allowed to graduate this school!"

"What majority do we need for the vote?" Victoria asked. Her hand was tightened around the edge of her podium and trembled as she spoke.

"Yeah, I was just wondering that, too," Marty remarked. "Is a simple majority required, or is it just whoever gets more votes? What if there's a tie? After all, Arrow's Impossibility Theorem states that no rank order voting system is both consistent and fair."

"If no one abstains, we cannot have a tie," Elizabeth scoffed. "There are fifteen of us, simpleton."

Marty gave Elizabeth a sneaky grin. "'Course we could, if we're split three ways or more. Seven of us vote for one guy, seven vote for another, one votes for a third. We have fifteen choices of people to vote for, remember?"

"We're piece of shit detectives if we can't narrow it down to at least two choices!" Maggie yelled at us.

I spotted a frown emerge upon Penny's face. "But we aren't detectives at all," her widened eyes seemed to say.

"Oh, shush, all of you!" Monobear continued. "A simple majority is necessary and required! If that is not achieved, the killer will still graduate and everyone else will be executed!"

"Makes sense," Marty said with a shrug. "Every mathematician knows that the only stable voting system is a benevolent dictatorship."

His comment was met with a shrill giggle. At first, I thought that the sound had emitted from Monobear, but then I realized it had been Victoria who had made the noise. "Oh, this should be fun!"

I frowned at her. First the clenched fists, then the nervous tension, and now — hysterical fits of giggles? Something had to be wrong.

"Mais non!" Felix exclaimed. "We already know the killer! It is her!" He pointed directly at Audrey. Lucas rolled his eyes in impatience.

The actress let out a gentle sob. "What? No! What are you talking about? I was with Jacob all day!"

"Felix, dear, haven't we gone over this?" I looked over at him with a friendly smile. "Audrey was the one who found the body, along with Jacob. That was how she got that blood on her hands."

Felix was unyielding. "How do we know they were not working together, hmmm?"

Jacob shuffled his feet nervously. "Hey...I'm...I'm not a killer! I'm just great at jokes! Like, like, odd numbers can't...they can't...they can't even and that's funny! I can't kill people!"

"Besides, there's no advantage to helping the killer," Elizabeth pointed out, "is there, Monobear?"

The bear gave a complacent nod. "Only the culprit can graduate, of course! An accomplice is only a silly little accomplice!"

"But what about whoever attacked Jack?" Melissa wondered, scratching her pen against her cheek. "Does he get to graduate, too, if we can't figure out who he is? Wouldn't that make it extra hard?"

"It's just as Monobear said," Elizabeth stated confidently. "Only a student who murdered someone can graduate. There's no point in simply attacking him and leaving him there, so we should assume that the killer is also the person who attacked Jack — especially because nobody admitted to being the attacker when I questioned all of you earlier."

"Couldn't someone else have tried to plan a murder, too, and _thought_ they'd killed Jack?" Noella suggested. "That would explain the attacker's reluctance to come forward."

"Who would be so stupid as to forget to check if their victim were actually dead or not?" Buzz groaned. "It's obvious — the killer and the attacker were one and the same."

"Besides, there's evidence that the incidents were related," Marty pointed out. I nodded, realizing what he was talking about. "After all..."

"What do you mean, Marty?" Charlie wondered out loud.

There it was — another string of giggles. Victoria was covering her lips with her hand, but it was clear that she had been the giggler.

"Oh, I thought this was obvious, so I left my sentence open-ended like that for somebody to finish, the way they do in movies, or in bad fanfiction," Marty spoke with a sheepish chuckle. "Don't you remember? Jack was attacked with Lexa's belt. That's what Elizabeth told us."

"Ah, yes," Elizabeth nodded. "It is likely that someone killed Lexa, took her belt, then used it to attempt to strangle Jack."

"But we found the belt on Lexa's body," Noella mentioned. "Why would the attacker put it back there?"

"To divert suspicion, perhaps," Lucas suggested.

"But then the killer would have put the belt back around Lexa's waist, right?" Noella countered. "If the belt had been where it should have been, we wouldn't have suspected a thing."

"True..." Charlie said, nodding. "So Jack was strangled first, and Lexa was killed afterwards."

"But that doesn't make any sense either!" Audrey cried out. "Are you telling me Lexa just gave away her belt, like, anyone want a free weapon? That's just dumb!"

"It's a paradox, isn't it?" Marty mused. "The attack didn't occur after the murder. The attack didn't occur before the murder. And if the attacker and the murderer were one and the same, the attack and the murder can't have been simultaneous. So where did we go wrong?"

A paradox. Paradoxes were the core of my performances. People love seeing the unexpected, the impossible; but it never was impossible. It only ever appeared impossible due to mistaken assumptions.

What mistaken assumption had we made, then?

Lexa's belt — a fact. Jack's bruises — a fact. Lexa's murder...

Another bout of giggles. I had a feeling most of the room was discreetly avoiding Victoria's presence, like family members who had made a silent oath not to speak of their black sheep, their oddball — but then that oddball spoke aloud. "Maybe the attack happened in the same room where she was murdered."

"No, no, no, Jack said he was attacked in the dorms," Melissa insisted. "It's here in my notes."

Ah. That must be it. But how could I prove it?

Marty echoed my thoughts. "What if Jack's lying?"

A stunned silence filled the room. Jack took the rubber ball out of his pocket with his left hand and began to squeeze it, as if he hadn't fully processed what Marty had said.

Yep. Definitely lying. But how could I prove it?

"There isn't any way to tell if he is or not," Lucas said, perhaps rather despairingly. "There's no scientific proof of lying."

"He is a lying cow, I suspect!" Felix declared.

As the others quibbled, Jack remained dead silent. I watched him carefully as a bead of sweat rolled down the side of his cheek.

"Okay, guys, calm the fuck down," Maggie shouted over the other voices. "We can't all just shout out random things if we're going to solve this fucking mess. We need to think...like me. Like a criminal." She flashed a dangerous smile. "I was more of jewel thief, but eh, murder is close enough."

The drop of sweat slid down the edge of Jack's chin, finally dripping onto his neck.

His neck...

Bingo.

But figuring it out was only half the battle. Now it was time for the theatrics.

"I'm not lying!" Jack finally shouted out. "I didn't kill anyone, I swear!"

"Please excuse us, Jack," I said in apologetic tones. "We're simply exploring every possibility, you see. Would you be so kind as to tell us the story of how you were attacked once more?"

Jack's fists clenched as he looked down, pocketing the ball. "I...I was just walking down the narrow hallway, by our dorms, and someone attacked me with some sort of fucking rope or some shit! I couldn't breathe and I passed out. Came to on the ground."

"And," I continued courteously, "you have absolutely no idea who your attacker was?"

"None at all," Jack agreed. "They attacked me from behind."

Gotcha. "As I thought you would say," I continued, still smiling. "For if someone attacked you from the front, you must have known who your attacker was, correct?"

"What are you going on about?" Audrey looked confused. "What does it matter if the attacker came from the front or from behind?"

From beside me, Charlie let out a gasp. There we go; she was catching on. "But...how did you get marks like that on your neck, Jack?"

"From when they strangled me!" Jack insisted.

"But," Charlie continued, a little hesitant, "but if you had been strangled from behind, those marks would look...different."

"Oh, clever!" Marty grinned, catching on. "Very clever."

"Huh?" Melissa, meanwhile, looked confused. "What's so clever?"

Showtime. "The bruise forms a continuous strip across the back of Jack's neck," I said, as if I was performing in a grand auditorium. "That means somebody wrapped the belt around the back of Jack's neck, which would only have been true if he had been attacked from the _front_ , and not from behind. If you were to strangle someone with a belt from behind, you would loop it over the front of your victim's neck and pull backwards, which wouldn't have left that kind of mark."

"Thus, he's lying!" Victoria said with an almost maniacal sneer. "That means we can discount his testimony and treat him as a hostile witness!"

Something was seriously off about Victoria, but I decided to keep my silent oath.

"...What the fuck," I caught Maggie muttering, not quite as tactfully.

The tell-tale perspiration poured down the sides of Jack's head as he realized he had been trapped. "I didn't kill her!" he cried out. "Fuck, fuck, fuck! It's not me! And even if I wasn't attacked from behind, it doesn't have anything to do with her murder!"

"Oh, come on, Jack, you're not saying you just _let_ somebody walk up to you and strangle you, right?" Marty said with a chuckle.

"That's just stupid!" added Audrey, who was giggling. "Oooh, maybe Jack has a weird fetish or something!

At this, Jack turned bright red. "Maybe they took me by surprise!"

Maybe? He wasn't much of a liar, it seemed.

"Well, maybe he did let them strangle him," Charlie said, bearing a thoughtful expression. "It's the only reasonable explanation. He's a jock. No one could take him by surprise unless he let them, right?"

I actually thought Audrey wasn't far off the mark. "Well, perhaps strangulation isn't the right word here," I remarked. "Rather, something along the lines of...flirtation?"

"Yeah, flirting works pretty well to get people to let their guard down," Maggie snickered. "I know from experience."

"Aha," Marty grinned. "So then it all becomes clear, doesn't it? Jack's attacker tricked him into thinking that she was flirting with him, when in reality, her goal was murder."

"So the killer was a girl, then?" Buzz said with a sigh. "Oh, _women_."

"Which girl, then, seduced Jack?" Elizabeth wondered.

Victoria's giggling was becoming steadily more disturbing and harder to ignore. _Focus_ , I told myself. I could worry about her later. Unless...unless the killer...?

No. It can't have been Victoria who had seduced Jack — beautiful as she was, it didn't make any sense. "There's only one reasonable possibility," Marty was saying, in fact. "It must have been Lexa herself."

"Yeah, it was her belt, after all," Audrey pointed out, sniggering as she spoke. "I bet Jack was drooling all over for her when she started taking it off."

Jack sputtered, "I-I-I...I just...I didn't...nothing like that happened!"

I thought back to the picture tucked away in my pocket — Lexa's smooth hair, her eyes shut, her eyelashes curling outwards...

"Audrey's right," I affirmed. "She even made a few preparations in order to look good. She curled her eyelashes, and in her room, Lucas and Felix found make-up and a curling iron."

"Lexa...herself?" Noella said in wonder. "But she does put on a little makeup now and then."

"And leave the curling iron still plugged in?" Felix asked incredulously. "Non, she must have been in a hurry on this special day!"

"But she wasn't feeling well!" Maggie said. "Did she really come up with all that?"

"If-f-f she p-p-planned this very far in...heehee...in adv-v-vance!" Victoria was laughing so hard that she was stuttering.

"Victoria." Noella gave her a look of concern. "Are you all right?"

Victoria nodded, muttering something under her breath.

"Are you saying," Marty clarified, "that Lexa was planning to kill Jack?"

"It's the only logical solution...isn't it?" Charlie said.

I shot another glance at Jack; he remained stiff and very, very quiet. Could it be? The natural explanation — the one that made sense — would be that...

"But Lexa's _dead!_ " Melissa whined, still trying to keep up. "She can't have been the killer, right?"

"Of course she wasn't the killer," Buzz spat out in scorn. "She couldn't possibly have been the killer! _Nobody_ could possibly be so fantastically inane, so abysmally foolish, so utterly idiotic as to believe Lexa killed herself."

"The killer and the attacker were different people, then, idiots!" Victoria cried out. "Lexa tried to kill him but Jack, whack, shatter, run run run, hide. The t-t-t-tablet, the shards, the window, the window! And then —" Victoria was mumbling under her breath, in rapid fire. I caught just a few words, "that — alive — found — faked — wiped — bottle — should've been there! It's so blatant! It's all there!"

"What?" Charlie frowned a little. "Could you maybe...slow down a little?"

Victoria exhaled in a huff of irritation before explaining, "Lexa tried to strangle Jack but ended up getting killed by someone else!"

"And that explains why the belt was left with Lexa," Noella spoke quite eagerly. "She tried to kill Jack but she was killed, instead, so she dropped the belt and it ended up lying on top of her."

"So somebody killed Lexa to save Jack's life?" Audrey said. "Why would anybody do that?"

It was obvious, wasn't it? Why else would Jack have been lying?

Lucas spoke in a slow, almost mesmerizing voice; he was clearly deep in thought. "To save oneself... it's human instinct. Jack killed her."

"The hell I did!" Jack shouted out. His left arm trembled at his side as he spoke. "These — all of this — they're all lies!"

"He killed her as he was being asphyxiated?" Buzz asked in a skeptical tone. "Oh, really? What was it he used as a weapon, then?"

"There were weapon props in that storage closet!" Melissa announced. "I saw them once!"

"Completely fake, I'm sorry to say," I replied, rubbing the top of my head at the memory. "But there was something in there that could have been used as a weapon." After all, I'd wrapped my hand around a bloody one. "The glass soda bottles."

"Well, obviously," Elizabeth remarked. "But not that glass bottle you found."

I raised my eyebrows at this in surprise. "No? Why ever not, my dear?"

"It's obvious," Elizabeth repeated. "If you'd drop the act and think, you'd know what I mean."

I thought back to when I'd picked it up by the neck — oh.

"You told me there wasn't much blood on it, other than the parts where I touched it," I recalled. "That means most of the blood was on the bottleneck."

"But if the bottle were used as a weapon," Noella said, with dawning comprehension, "most of the blood would have gotten to the part of the bottle that hit Lexa on the head, not the part of the bottle the killer was holding."

"And if you're hitting somebody on the head with a glass bottle, you'd naturally hold it by the neck and hit someone with the bottle's base," Marty finished off, demonstrating a smack with a bottle by bringing down his clenched fist in an arc through the air. "Otherwise, it probably wouldn't have hit hard enough to knock someone out, much less kill anyone."

"So...that bloody bottle has nothing to do with this?" Melissa asked in puzzlement.

"That's what it seems like," Charlie agreed. "The murder weapon was probably a bottle, yeah, but it wasn't _that_ bottle. It was the broken one on the floor — that's why it was surrounded by blood and soda."

"It must have been a bottle of pop from the counter," Marty observed. "That fits in with our conjecture that Jack was the killer, doesn't it? Think about the way Lexa's body was found."

"Her knees bent, close to the front of the counter," Noella recalled, her head leaning to one side. "Oh — she must have been kneeling in front of the counter, pinning Jack to it!"

"So he reached behind himself, grabbed a bottle, and — bam!" Felix smacked himself on the forehead gracefully, before wincing. "Owwwie..."

"Only the bottles on one side of the counter were on their sides," I remembered. "Jack must have been trying to grab something with one arm, and knocked a few other bottles over in the process."

"But," Charlie frowned, looking a little flummoxed, "where were Lexa's injuries, again?"

"Upupupupu!" cried the voice I didn't ever want to hear again. "Don't tell me you didn't read my fiiiiile!"

"The back of her head was injured, right?" said Lucas.

"That's correct," Noella confirmed. "But Jack couldn't really have reached those if he was being pinned to the counter and strangled, right? It's a lot more likely that he was the one who hit her on the front of the head."

"But then — where did the wound to the back of her head come from?" Marty wondered.

"Trivial," Buzz drawled. "When Lexa was knocked over the head, she fell backwards onto the floor and was injured further."

"That makes sense," Noella said, nodding. "That floor was made of concrete."

"It's settled, then," Buzz proclaimed. "Everything's clear. Jack is the murderer!"

"Aha!" Felix cried. "He was Lexa's killer; there is zero doubt!"

"That's right," Melissa said confidently. "Let's vote!"

"It all fits in so neatly," I agreed. "Just like a jigsaw puzzle. You do seem awfully quiet, don't you, Jack?"

Jack had been silent all along as we pummelled him with accusations. Now, he finally opened his mouth a little. "I..."

"Yes?" Marty asked, his eyebrows raised in apparent amusement. "Something you want to say?"

"I...I didn't...I didn't kill anyone!" Jack cried out. "I was attacked! I'm the victim here!"

"And yet you lied to us, Jack," I continued, shaking my head at him in mock pity. "There's no denying that, is there?"

"Y-yes. I mean no!" Jack stammered, his chest heaving. "I mean — I didn't kill her! She tried to kill me but I didn't kill her! I just, I just, I...n-n-no...I..."

"You just?" I repeated, smiling politely in his direction. "You just hit her on the head, right?"

"No, no way!" Jack practically screamed. "I didn't do anything like that, I'm telling you! These are just...coincidences! Lexa tried to kill me and then, and then, and then, and then someone framed me!"

"Jack," Noella said, with an odd kind of calmness. "Please. It's over."

Noella looked directly at Jack. Jack looked down at his hands, which were wrapped firmly around the front of his podium.

Eventually, Jack opened his mouth to speak. "I...I'm —"

"Ooooh!" Monobear cooed with a cackle — an ungodly sound. "It seems you have reached your conclusion. Well, let's rooooooll in those votes, then! I can't wait to see what will happen! Will you prevail? Or will you be brutally ripped into little flecks of dandruff? Upupupupu, let's —"

A loud snort interrupted the bear. "Ha!"

I lowered my gaze to Victoria, who continued to chortle. "You're all so s-s-silly!" Victoria called out, barely able to contain herself. "All of you!"

"What?" Marty said rapidly, a look of concern flashing over his face. "What are you...what are you saying?"

An inhuman noise erupted from the depths of Victoria's throat; I couldn't tell if it was a howl of laughter or a dreadful wail. "Think think think think _think!_ It's fucking apparent, don't you think? What did it say on the last line of Monobear's file?"

"'External wounds: wound at front right side of forehead, multiple wounds on back of head,'" Noella quoted. "Oh! Oh, dear..."

"Multiple wounds. MULTIPLE WOUNDS! It's clear as day!" Victoria called out with a piercing laugh. "Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack was scared shitless and dropped that bottle by the door!"

"That does not even rhyme!" Felix complained.

"You don't think he ran off, dropped the bottle, then came back and pounded Lexa's head to a pulp, do you?" Victoria snarled viciously. "Or do you think he calmly smashed her skull in before running out and dropping that bottle in a frenzy? That's completely absurd! It's all a game, you see, and we merely must find the answer to the riddle...It's like a raven and a writing desk!"

Buzz exclaimed, "That...that doesn't make any sense!"

"Oh yes, _of course_ it does, you nitwit!" Victoria screamed at the top of her lungs. "Jack ran off like a frightened kitty cat, leaving Lexa just lying there. Then — afterwards — Lexa was murdered by somebody _else!_ "

I tried to process this onslaught of information. Victoria's grin sent a chill down my spine, but I couldn't think about that now; I had to concentrate on what she had said. I saw my own concern and befuddlement reflected in varying degrees in the eyes of the others. The evidence — Jack's own lies — it all pointed to him, didn't it? Even if Victoria was right, who else —

"Well, that's all very well and good!" Maggie broke the silence with a voice dripping with sarcasm. "Then tell me this — who the hell was the _real_ fucker that killed her?"


	8. Unveiled: Hibbert

"Come on, guys, think! There must've been something we missed!"

I looked over at Noella. Although I appreciated her effort to encourage us, it was hardly as if I hadn't been thinking.

Victoria's words...they had led me to a startling conclusion. The affair seemed to be much more complicated than I had originally imagined.

"Oh, come on!" Buzz moaned. "Jack's as good as confessed! Any further analysis is a waste of our time! I bet you overthink things all the time, don't you, Victoria? If you ask me — find the simplest answer as fast as possible and be done with it."

I had to admit Buzz had a point. Although Victoria's reasoning made sense, there was no way to say for sure what Jack had really done — at least not based on Victoria's words alone.

"Yeah!" Audrey nodded in fervent agreement. "Jack hit Lexa over the head and lied about it!"

There was no denying that. Still...Victoria might have been right. The wounds on the back of Lexa's head suggested that, not only had she fallen back onto the concrete floor and injured her head against it, someone had come along afterwards and repeatedly smacked Lexa's head on the floor. But was there any way to tell for sure that this hadn't also been Jack's doing?

"Victoria," I said, "I don't mean to doubt you, of course, but do you happen to have any further evidence to support your claim? I think, perhaps that would help us see what you're seeing."

Victoria was seething. She jerked her head to one side, pointing with her thumb at Penny.

Penny herself was frantically waving her notebook, looking directly at me. I realized with a pang of guilt that I had almost forgotten about her.

"Ah, Penny seems to be saying something," Elizabeth observed. "Hibbert, translate."

I did not need to ask Elizabeth why she had directed her request to me — Penny's finger was now pointed blatantly in my direction.

Clearly Penny wanted to say something to me...or about me. Was she accusing me? No, that didn't seem to be the case. Her eyes were urging, pleading.

I tucked two fingers into my pocket before sliding them out, having slipped the folded illustration of the scene of the crime between them. As I unfolded it and flattened it out before me, I spotted Penny giving me an eager nod.

"W-what's that?" Jacob asked, squinting at what I held in my hands as he stood behind a podium directly opposite mine.

"Hmmm? Oh, well, you see," I explained as I examined the picture closely, "earlier Penny gave me this sketch she drew of the crime scene. Perhaps there's something we've missed — something crucial — something in this picture."

Penny's nods were becoming more fervent — I must have been on the right track.

Charlie leaned towards me to get a good look at the sheet of notepad paper, and I handed it over to her. "Well, the bottles are knocked over to the side, just as you mentioned," she remarked. "That fits in with everything we talked about. But...Victoria's right. The broken glass bottle was dropped right next to the door."

"Let me see," Audrey said, taking the picture from Charlie. "I mean, there's a ton of ways you can explain this, right? Maybe Jack tossed it over to the door to get rid of it as fast as he could! It doesn't prove anything!"

Jack grabbed the picture away from Audrey. "V-V-Victoria's right!" he shouted frantically. "I ran the hell away from there, and that's where I dropped the bottle! Look, look!" He shoved the picture into Buzz's doubtful face.

Buzz accepted it with a scowl. "This means nothing. Listen to me, from experience — the simplest answer is usually right. Go with your gut."

"'Tis true!" Felix announced, his eyes wide and triumphant as he snatched the drawing from Buzz's fingers and waved it in the air like a handkerchief. "Jack is nothing but a lying murderer, and he knows it!"

Just then, Penny hopped up and caught her artwork by the corner before pushing it into the hands of Victoria on her right, as if begging her to examine it closely. Victoria, however, merely shoved it over into Jacob's hands. "Just look at it!" she growled at him in impatience. "What do you see?"

"I...I see L-Lexa," Jacob observed. "B-b-but you should call her Flexa, y'know, 'c-cause she's f-f-flexible!"

"...The hell are you talking about," Lucas muttered, prying the picture from between Jacob's fingers and surveying it himself.

"H-her legs are b-b-b-bent!" Jacob stammered, with a giggle. "Isn't that f-f-f-funny?"

"You need professional help," Lucas decided, before slipping the sketch over to Maggie on his right. "But anyway, I doubt this depiction can provide us with any additional assistance. Everything in this picture is something we've already seen before — the bottles, the position and state of the body, the shards..."

"...The belt, the window, the floor, and all that blood," Maggie finished for him. "Gotta admit, it's a great drawing, though. The texture, the shading, those bold pencil strokes — on the mark. They really don't call you the Super High School Level Artist for nothing, huh, Penny?" Maggie grinned. "I would know. I'm, you know, something of an art connoisseur myself..."

Melissa agreed, "Yes!" as she was handed the notepad paper by Maggie. "Penny, you don't mind if I use this in my article about the murder, do you?"

Penny was shaking her head frantically. Naturally, Melissa took this as an answer to her query and, with a nod of satisfaction, passed on the picture to Noella, who gazed at the drawing in admiration. "It's beautiful," she remarked with a smile. "A beautiful passing." With a delicate sigh, she passed it on to Elizabeth.

"Let's get back on track," Elizabeth insisted, handing the picture over to Marty after a quick glance. "Lucas is right. We've exhausted every possibility within the crime scene. Right now, we must look beyond it."

"Where to?" Marty wondered. "If we wish to prove that Jack was not Lexa's murderer, it is sufficient to show that Lexa died at a later time. If we can somehow prove that someone saw Lexa alive after Jack left the room, we would be done."

Marty leaned over the podium behind which Lexa's portrait stood and gave me the picture, which had made its way around the entire circle of the fifteen of us and was now back in my hands. I looked once again at Penny. The picture — it was her way of telling us something, something crucial. Could it be the proof that Marty sought?

But Lucas was right — we had gone over everything we'd found at the crime scene already.

Yet Penny...the look on her face...somehow, she must be right, too.

Then...?

"We've already found out everything we can about the crime scene," I started to say; for once, I was unsure of my own words. "But...that doesn't mean Penny's picture can't help us, right?"

"What the hell do you mean?" Maggie asked, casting me a look of confusion.

I paused, trying to work out what to say. "There's more to a picture than what it's supposed to be a picture of," was what I finally settled upon. "It's like what you said, isn't it? The strokes, the texture, the…the…"

The shading.

The shadows.

The light shining through the window, the counter casting a —

"...shadow over Lexa's legs," I finished, as the truth dawned on me. "Penny — you didn't draw this picture from what you saw after we discovered the crime scene, did you? You drew it from what you'd seen earlier this morning."

I had already grown accustomed to the looks of confusion that I saw on the others' faces once more — ten of the others' faces, that was. Lucas straightened his back, gazing at me with what I rather hoped was admiration, though of course that was neither here nor there. Marty opened his mouth as if to speak, before breaking into a grin. Victoria was, well...whatever she was doing.

And Penny gave me a smile.

"...Run that by me one more time," Elizabeth requested. "What about the strokes, the texture, and the shadow over Lexa's legs?"

"Just the shadow," I clarified hurriedly. "Look at the shadow's direction. It's being cast by the counter, over Lexa's legs, so it's going this way." I pointed a finger downwards, away from the drawing, at where the door to the storage room would be if the picture were to float off the page.

"So?" Audrey asked pointedly.

"The only way the shadow would be pointing that way, towards the door," Lucas replied, "would be if the sun — that is, the artificial light source — were shining through the storage room's back window. But in order to simulate the outside world, the light source changes direction throughout the day."

"Remember when we told you all about the light outside?" Marty said. "We were in the kitchen, and the light was streaming in through the window directly opposite the front doors to the cafeteria. That was during the afternoon."

"Oh, yeah!" Noella had realized it, too. "And when you pointed at the other side of the school — you were pointing towards the door to the drama storage room. So the window in there is directly opposite the window in the kitchen. That means —"

"That picture was drawn this morning," Charlie finished for her. "That's when the artificial lighting would have been shining through the opposite side of the school. So Penny had already found the body in the morning, before any of the rest of us did."

"But that doesn't tell us anything," Buzz spat out. "So what if Penny found the body early? Good luck trying to get her to tell you if Lexa was alive or dead!"

"She doesn't need to tell us," Elizabeth stated, her voice ringing out, calm and clear. "I assume you know how to count to three?"

"Penny, Jacob, and Audrey," I said, raising one of my fingers of my right hand for each name. "That makes three people. And according to Monobear's rules, once three people discover a dead body, the Body Discovery Announcement should go off. That means that when Penny found her, Lexa can't have already been dead — otherwise, the announcement would have gone off!"

"Wait, so Penny saw the body before we got there!" Jack pointed out. "She could have killed her!"

"And then sat down in her blood and calmly sketched a picture of her," Buzz said, his voice heavy with irony. "Oh, please. There isn't even any blood on that paper."

"That's true," Charlie said. "Whoever did...this...must have gotten blood on their hands, if they were slamming Lexa's head against the floor, but there are no bloodstains on Penny's drawing."

"And when you two — Audrey and Jacob — passed Penny in the hall," Marty said, "you didn't see any blood on her, did you?"

Both Audrey and Jacob shook their heads.

"Blood can be cleaned," Noella suggested. "Was there anything in the room that someone could have used to clean off the blood?"

"I would, at first, have suggested that the killer wiped his or her hands on fabric of some sort," Lucas said, "but Marty, Buzz and I moved all of the costume racks out of the room the day before."

"So it's altogether unlikely that Penny was the murderer," Elizabeth summarized. "Besides, she was the one who gave us this piece of evidence in the first place. If she were the murderer, she could have simply kept...er, kept the picture to herself."

If even Elizabeth were stumbling over her words, the trial must have been taking its toll on all of us. Then I realized Elizabeth must have initially been about to say that Penny "could have simply kept quiet."

"Of course she's not," Buzz said with impatience. "Haven't I already made this clear? Jack did it. It doesn't matter that the time of death was later — Jack left Lexa there to bleed out and die. Maybe she didn't die immediately — maybe it took a while. But it was Jack who gave her those wounds, and so it was Jack that killed her."

"Not so fast," Marty said. "Let's think about this logically. Assume for the sake of contradiction that Jack did do it. Then the only reason the additional wounds were caused would be if Jack had realized Lexa wasn't dead yet, before continuing to slam Lexa's head against the concrete floor. So if that's what Jack did, he must have known how to check whether or not Lexa was still alive, so he would have waited until he'd made sure that Lexa was dead before leaving — a contradiction, and not just because of where we found the broken glass bottle. And this argument extrapolates to anyone else who came across the body afterwards — the additional blows must have been caused by someone trying to make sure Lexa was dead, so in fact the time of death and the time when the killer was beating Lexa over the head were the same. In other words, we know that the killer was someone who came by after Penny discovered the body."

"So any time during the day, someone could have come in, seen Lexa lying unconscious on the floor, realized she wasn't dead yet, and killed her," Lucas said. "It's impossible to know who."

"Look, nothing is fucking impossible," Maggie said. "Let's get this fucking thing done and pull ourselves the fuck together, okay, you fucking cry babies?"

"And it wasn't just any time during the day that the killer could have come in!" Audrey exclaimed. "Jacob and I were there the whole day, remember? We even bumped into Penny — she must have been on her way out!"

"And you saw no one else near that room?"

Everyone turned to look at Victoria, who had been the one to speak. She appeared to have somewhat calmed down. Her eyes bore into Audrey expectantly.

"We were s-s-standing in front of the door," Audrey replied, looking a little intimidated by Victoria's gaze. "I think we would have known if somebody had come out!"

"That settles it, then," Elizabeth said, a smug smile on her lips. "If Penny weren't the killer, and if nobody went in or out of the drama storage room until Audrey and Jacob entered it that afternoon, then the facts are clear. Whoever the killer was must have killed Lexa between the time when Audrey and Jacob discovered Lexa's body — well, Lexa's still unconscious, not-yet-dead body — and the time when Jacob returned with Jack and me in tow. Whoever the killer was must have been alone with the body during that period of time. And who do we know who fits that description?"

I looked at the boy standing directly across from me. He stood trembling, as if the air were very cold. "Jacob," I said. "Was it you?"

* * *

"No! No, no, no, no! It wasn't me!"

For the second time that hour, a boy was frantically shaking his head and denying his guilt. I sighed — quietly, so nobody would notice, but I sighed nevertheless — because it saddened me to see what they were going through.

But it had to be done.

"But you were alone with the body, weren't you, Jacob?" Noella was saying.

"I...I was for a little bit...But...but it wasn't me! I swear!" Jacob was sobbing.

"Just a little bit?" Melissa said, frowning as she consulted her notes. "You told us you were there for a while!"

Jacob buried his face in his hands. "Maybe! Yes! I don't know but...but...but it wasn't me!"

"Pathetic," Buzz said, shaking his head. "You would think that —"

"Hang on," Maggie interrupted. "As much of an idiot Jacob is, he doesn't have to be the killer. Some fucker could've snuck inside the storage room after Jacob went to grab the others."

I gripped the edge of the podium, remembering not to get ahead of myself. Maggie was right. There was a chance — a slim window of opportunity — during which anyone could have gone in and killed Lexa.

I ran over the list of people in my head. Jack must have been lying on the ground, faking unconsciousness. Elizabeth had run into him — but what had she been doing before then? Why was she in the boys' dorms anyway?

Melissa, Noella, Charlie, and Maggie had been at band practice — though perhaps by then they'd been dispersed throughout the school, looking for Lexa. Felix had been alone in the auditorium, but then he had come to the recreational room for a drink before returning to his dorm. Lucas, Marty, and Buzz had been gathered in the cafeteria, though any one of them could have slipped out. Penny and Victoria had been who knows where. Audrey had run off into the bathroom, trying to clean off the blood; Felix had spotted her. And Jacob...Jacob had been alone with the body.

Wait...what? Something was amiss, there. Something...wrong...

"Are you saying someone just happened to enter the drama closet right after Jacob left?" Buzz groaned. "That's obviously too much of a coincidence."

"Maybe somebody saw Jacob and Audrey go inside and find Lexa," Charlie suggested. "Maybe they waited till the two of them came out, then went inside to check out what had happened. And when they saw Lexa and realized she was still alive...they finished her off."

"But then, where could this mysterious assailant have been waiting?" Melissa asked. "Where could they have kept an eye on the closet without being seen?"

"Just ask yourself — where would you hide?" Noella said. "I think I would've tucked myself away in one of the lockers. That way, nobody would see me, but I could watch the hallways through the cracks."

"Ah, the lockers, yes!" Felix exclaimed. "There was something most disgusting near the lockers, on the floor!"

The sticky patch on the floor — I remembered noticing it as well. It hadn't been blood. It could only have been...

"An unknown substance beneath the lockers," Lucas said quietly. "If only I had had the proper tools to analyze it. Regardless, we can hypothesize that it was left behind by the killer when entering or leaving the locker."

"Everyone show us your shoes!" Jack said, having apparently calmed down now that he was no longer under suspicion. "Whoever has the stickiest shoes is the killer!" Calmness, it seemed, did not correlate in his case with mental capacity.

"So someone spotted Jacob and Audrey going into the drama room," Elizabeth said, "climbed inside a locker, and waited until —"

"Say that again, won't you please?" I interjected. An image was forming inside my head — something scarlet, flowing...

Elizabeth looked at me oddly before repeating herself. "Someone spotted Jacob and Audrey, climbed inside a locker, and —"

Oh. _Oh._ That was it. It all came together. And...and the killer was...

"The murderer," Marty began, a gleam in his eyes as he straightened his back. I could tell he'd gotten it, too. But I was hardly going to let him steal the show.

"The murderer, indeed!" I said loudly, cutting Marty off. "You know who you are." I smiled politely as I scanned the faces before me. "I applaud you. Very, very clever, killing someone who was already apparently dead. No fancy planning involved — just taking advantage of the opportunity that had presented itself to you, and a bit of cleaning up after yourself. Twice you almost had me fooled. But no longer — it's obvious, now, who you are."

I could almost smell the anticipation in the air as I inhaled, thriving in all the attention. The killer, it amused me to notice, still bore an expression of innocent curiosity. What a coy one. I knew it wasn't going to last.

"But you made a mistake. And then you made another mistake. And then another. You were really quite full of yourself, weren't you? But then, that is your nature. Probably didn't even notice where you went wrong. Would you like me to explain it to you?"

"Just get on with it!" Elizabeth commanded. "Enough of this funny business. If you know who the killer is, why don't you share?"

"Have patience, my dear," I said, still smiling. "Let me have my little moment here."

And with that, I hopped over the podium in front of me and landed neatly inside the center of the circle.

* * *

"Nyyyaaaah!" Monobear shouted from his throne, his eyes glowing ominously. "Go back to where you're supposed to be standing, or I'll chew off your fingers one by one!"

"Oh, please, Mr. Monobear, but this is so much more fun," I said before turning my back on the animal. "First! The mysterious sticky substance beneath the locker door — what could it possibly be? Let us settle that question once and for all."

"It wasn't blood," Lucas remarked. "Wasn't water, either, it was too sticky. Beyond that I couldn't say for sure."

"Well, think about it," I said, casting him a playful smirk. "There was really only one other liquid available nearby that it _could_ have been, wasn't there?"

"Oh." Lucas squeezed his eyes shut, looking rather adorably embarrassed. "It was soda. Duh."

"What was a bunch of spilled pop doing on the floor by the lockers?" Audrey demanded. "I almost stepped in it! _So_ gross."

"The killer used it to clean, of course." Marty seemed eager to explain this bit, so I didn't cut him off this time. "As Hibbert put it, it was the only other liquid available nearby. The killer must have needed something to wash off the blood, so they poured out some of the pop and used it to mop up. There was no sink, so it just ended up all over the floor."

"Exactly! We advance. Now, then, to the next matter — Elizabeth!" I pointed at her. "You said just now that the killer _climbed_ inside the locker. It occurred to me then that, indeed, the killer would have needed to step up a little to get into the locker and hide. Lockers never go all the way down to the floor, otherwise you'd never be able to get the doors open, they'd get stuck scraping against the ground. So if you're going to hide inside a locker, you need to climb up a little, like stepping up a staircase."

Buzz said, "So what? What difference does it make?"

"Well, now we know who we're looking for," I said, twirling around to face him. "Whoever murdered Lexa took a step up into a locker. We're looking for someone with signs of having recently climbed up a step."

"The fuck kind of sign does _that_ leave?" Maggie glowered at me.

I winked back at her. "Nothing, usually. Lucky for us, the killer's exactly the type of person who _would_ leave such a sign."

Time for the truth. I spun around in a circle slowly on the spot until I had found my target.

There. "It was you," I said. " _You_ stepped into that locker. Isn't that right —?"


	9. The Victim

_A/N: Trying something a little different here, which is why this is hardly a full-length chapter. We'll get back into things by next time. Let me know what you think by reviewing — thanks!_

* * *

The sun beating down — the stench of burnt rubber — the exhaust fumes fogging up the air — the sticky, sweat-soaked padding shoved up against my skin.

I loved it. It pumped me up, empowered me. Made me feel alive. Made me feel like anything was possible. Filled me with hope. Victory was just a pleasant afterthought.

"Woooh!" I shot my fist through the air, breathing in the yelps and cheers. I yanked off my helmet — never liked helmets much — before I took a breath of fresh air and shook my matted blonde hair out of my face, my eyes scanning the crowds.

I leapt up onto the podium, taking my place between the two I'd defeated. A bead of sweat dripped into my eye; it stung. Squeezing it shut, I squinted out of my other eye, trying to find a familiar face. As much as I loved the stadium, crowds confused me. Outside, I was exposed; I couldn't take it all in at once. Only in the driver's seat was I determined, focused, sharp. One goal in my head, one direction: _forward_.

I looked forward and saw him. Tiny as he was, I'd recognize that mop of blonde hair anywhere. He was standing on his seat, bouncing up and down, his little fist raised in the air — just like mine.

I cracked a grin, waving fervently in his direction. _This one's for you, Randy_.

* * *

 _Randy_ …

At first, I thought he was cheering.

"Does…anyone else hear that?"

But nobody else was listening. They were all muttering over me, freakin' the shit out in their seats — not that I didn't feel the same.

My jaw trembled; my fingers shook. I punched the table, shouted something furious, fumed a little — but I could still hear it flooding my head, like dirty oil clogging up the filters.

The screaming grew ever louder, shutting out every other thought in my head. _Randy, kiddo, hang in there! Just stay put! I'm coming for you!_

…But I wasn't. I couldn't come for him. I was promising him a lie.

Unless…?

* * *

The rest of the day was like a dream. Like I was on autopilot. I went through the motions, chatted, played the bass, smiled.

But my mind was elsewhere; I was fixated. I was in the driver's seat, taking charge of my life, my way. One goal in my head, one direction: _out_.

At dinner I caught Jack staring at my ass. Almost on impulse, I caught his eye and winked back at him.

Then I got to thinking…

I bolted up from the cafeteria table and began to rush outside, almost colliding into Maggie. "Watch it! Hey, where you going?"

"Back to my room," I muttered, realizing how sickly and hoarse my voice was. "Um…stomachache. Might throw up."

She steered clear away from me after that. I spotted Noella gazing at me from her seat.

I couldn't face her judgment — her pity. I turned around and hurried back to my dorm.

* * *

The next morning I twirled the curling iron slowly and methodically through my hair, and I watched as each strand twisted and bent under the force of the heat. Each time I held the iron close to my cheek, I felt the heat coming off of it, fueling me with its flame.

I was just killing time, of course. It wasn't like Jack would even notice if I looked any different, much less care. But it gave me something to do while I waited.

When it was time, I slipped out of my dorm. My stomach lurched; Elizabeth was standing in the hallway, her arms folded across her chest. I was hoping I wouldn't have to see anyone — the faces of the ones who would have to die.

I ignored her; she ignored me. I walked onwards resolutely, heading out of the common area, up the stairs, and into the hallway of the boys' dorm. Jack's was the third door down.

I rapped my knuckles on his door, then turned around and sauntered back out of the hall. When I heard the door open behind me, I glanced over my shoulder and smirked at the kid. "You comin'?"

I led him through the hall, past the band room and the row of lockers, and into the drama storage closet. Locking the door behind us, I shoved him down to the floor against the counter, making the bottles atop it tremble.

He gazed up at me, his eyes wide, panting like a dog. Tough boys like getting pushed around a little. I began to undo my belt, eyeing him saucily as I did, as he ran his fingers up the sides of my legs and I tried hard not to cringe.

"Down, boy," I murmured silkily, looping my belt around the back of his neck. I knelt down — planted my knees on the floor — pulled.

Jack's eyes widened — they bulged out as he clutched at his neck with one hand and my face with the other. I lurched back, avoiding his clawing as I pulled harder.

He let out a loud hacking sound, followed by a forceful gurgling; the veins in his neck became more pronounced as his skin grew into a deep, purple hue. He kneed me in the shin, twisting back and forth, fumbling behind him on the counter, but I held firm.

I stared into his eyes and watched as I slowly squeezed the life out of him. It disgusted me — but somehow, I felt I compelled to keep watch. If I was going to do this, there would be no backing out — I couldn't let my nerves get in the way. If I were ever going to see Randy again, I had to see this through.

See Randy again…

Out of the corner of my eye I spotted my fingers wrapped around my belt in a fist. Suddenly I saw Randy, his fist raised enthusiastically, cheering me on in my victory.

My victory?

I could be victorious. I could win this thing. All I had to do was finish this, as Randy cheered me on. Right?

Randy's fist fell. His eyes widened in abject horror. He opened his mouth and let out a blood-curdling scream.

I gasped, hesitated — my grip loosened.

I saw a flash of bright light, glinting off the bottle in Jack's hand; I saw it swing in a wide arc as its contents swished back and forth; I saw it smack into my head, and I toppled, falling onto my back, my head smashing into the floor.

Then I saw nothing.

Should've worn a helmet.


End file.
